FOREST GEOGRAPHY AND ARCHEOLOGY. 211 



ter. And the great Pacific Gulf-stream sweeps toward and 

 along the coast, instead of bearing away from it, as on our 

 Atlantic side. 



The winters are mild and short, and are to a great extent a 

 season of growth, instead of suspension of growth as with us. 

 So there is a far longer season available to tree vegetation 

 than with us, during all of which trees may either grow or 

 accumulate the materials for growth. On our side of the 

 continent and in this latitude, trees use the whole autumn in 

 getting ready for a six-months winter, which is completely 

 lost time. 



Finally, as concerns the west coast, the lack of summer rain 

 is made up by the moisture-laden ocean winds, which regularly 

 every summer afternoon wrap the coast-ranges of mountains, 

 which these forests affect, with mist and fog. The Redwood, 

 one of the two California Big Trees, — the handsomest and 

 far the most abundant and useful, — is restricted to these 

 coast ranges, bathed with soft showers fresh from the ocean 

 all winter, and with fogs and moist ocean air all summer. It 

 is nowhere found beyond the reach of these fogs. South of 

 Monterey, where this summer condensation lessens, and winter 

 rains become precarious, the Redwoods disappear, and the gen- 

 eral forest becomes restricted to favorable stations on moun- 

 tain sides and summits. . . . The whole coast is bordered by 

 a line of mountains, which condense the moisture of the sea- 

 breezes upon their cool slopes and summits. These winds, 

 continuing eastward, descend dry into the valleys, and warm- 

 ing as they descend, take up moisture instead of dropping 

 any. These valleys, when broad, are sparsely wooded or wood- 

 less, except at the north, where summer rain is not very rare. 



Beyond stretches the Sierra Nevada, all rainless in summer, 

 except local hail-storms and snowfalls on its higher crests and 

 peaks. Yet its flanks are forest-clad ; and, between the levels 

 of 3000 and 9000 feet, they bear an ample growth of the lar- 

 gest coniferous trees known. In favored spots of this forest, 

 and only there, are found those groves of the giant Sequoia, 

 near kin of the Redwood of the coast ranges, whose trunks are 

 from fifty to ninety feet in circumference, and whose height is 



