148 ESS A YS. 



through a few generations, the traditions of centuries, and so 

 tell us something of the history of their race. Fifteen hun- 

 dred annual layers have been counted, or satisfactorily made 

 out, upon one or two fallen trunks. It is probable that close 

 to the heart of some of the living trees may be found the 

 circle that records the year of our Saviour's nativity. A few 

 generations of such trees might carry the history a long way 

 back. But the ground they stand upon, and the marks of 

 very recent geological change and vicissitude in the region 

 around, testify that not very many such generations can have 

 flourished just there, at least in an unbroken series. When 

 their site was covered by glaciers, these Sequoias must have 

 occupied other stations, if, as there is reason to believe, they 

 then existed in the land. 



I have said that the Redwoods have no near relatives in 

 the country of their abode, and none of their genus anywhere 

 else. Perhaps something may be learned of their genealogy 

 by inquiring of such relatives as they have. There are only 

 two of any particular nearness of kin ; and they are far away. 

 One is the Bald Cypress, our southern Cypress (Taxodium), 

 inhabiting the swamps of the Atlantic coast from Maryland 

 to Texas, thence extending — with, probably, a specific differ- 

 ence — into Mexico. It is well known as one of the largest 

 trees of our Atlantic forest-district, and although it never — 

 except perhaps in Mexico, and in rare instances — attains the 

 portliness of its western relatives, yet it may equal them in 

 longevity. The other relative is Glyptostrobus, a sort of modi- 

 fied Taxodium, being about as much like our Bald Cypress as 

 one species of Redwood is like the other. 



Now species of the same type, especially when few, and the 

 type peculiar, are, in a general way, associated geographically, 

 i. e., inhabit the same country, or (in a large sense) the same 

 region. Where it is not so, where near relatives are sepa- 

 rated, there is usually something to be explained. Here is an 

 instance. These four trees, sole representatives of their tribe, 

 dwell almost in three separate quarters of the world : the two 

 Redwoods in California, the Bald Cypress in Atlantic North 

 America, its near relative, Glyptostrobus, in China. 



