212 ESSAYS. 



from two hundred to three hundred and twenty-five feet. And 

 in reaching these wondrous trees you ride through miles of 

 Sugar Pines, Yellow Pines, Spruces, and Firs, of such magnifi- 

 cence in girth and height, that the Big Trees, when reached 

 — astonishing as they are — seem not out of keeping with 

 their surroundings. 



I cannot pretend to account for the extreme magnificence of 

 this Sierra forest. Its rainfall is in winter, and of unknown 

 but large amount. Doubtless most of it is in snow, of which 

 fifty or sixty feet fall in some winters, and — different from 

 the coast and from Oregon, where it falls as rain, and at a 

 temperature which does not suspend vegetable action — here 

 the winter must be complete cessation. But with such great 

 snowfall the supply of moisture to the soil should be abun- 

 dant and lasting. 



Then the Sierra — much loftier than the coast ranges, ris- 

 ing from 7000 or 8000 to 11,000 and 14,000 feet — is refreshed 

 in summer by the winds from the Pacific, from which it takes 

 the last drops of available moisture ; and mountains of such 

 altitude, to which moisture from whatever source or direction 

 must necessarily be attracted, are always expected to support 

 forests, — at least when not cut off from sea-winds by interposed 

 chains of equal altitude. Trees such mountains will have. The 

 only and the real wonder is, that the Sierra Nevada should rear 

 such immense trees ! 



Moreover, we shall see that this forest is rich and superb 

 only in one line ; that, beyond one favorite tribe, it is meagre 

 enough. Such for situation, and extent, and surrounding con- 

 ditions, are the two forests — the Atlantic and Pacific — which 

 are to be compared. 



In order to come to this comparison, I must refrain from all 

 account of the intervening forest of the Rocky Mountains — - 

 only saying that it is comparatively poor in the size of its 

 trees and the number of species ; that few of its species are 

 peculiar, and those mostly in the southern part, and of the 

 Mexican plateau type ; that they are common to the mountain 

 chains which lie between, stretched north and south en echelon, 

 all through that arid or desert region of Utah and Nevada, of 



