THE SEQUOIAS 263 



spheres, reaching even to the Arctic Circle. The glacial 

 period transformed the climate of the world and de- 

 stroyed these luxuriant northern forests under a grinding 

 continuous glacier. The rocks of the tertiary and 

 cretaceous periods preserved in fossils the story of these 

 pre-glacial forests. Two of the species of sequoia escaped 

 destruction in tracts the ice sheet did not overwhelm. For 

 ten thousand years, perhaps, the sequoia has held its own 

 In the California groves. Indeed, both species are able to 

 extend their present range if nature is unhindered. The 

 three enemies that tin-eaten sequoia groves are the axe of 

 the lumberman, the forest fire kindled by the waste about 

 sawmills, and the grazing flocks that destroy seedling trees. 



The Big Tree 



Sequoia Wellingtoiiia, Seem. 



The Big Tree is the most gigantic tree on the face of the 

 earth, the mightiest living creature in existence. Among 

 the giant sugar pines and red firs it lifts a wonderfully reg- 

 ular, rounded dome so far above the aspiring arrow-tips of 

 its neighbors as to make the best of them look like mere 

 saplings. The massive trunk, clothed with red-browTi or 

 purplish bark, is fluted by furrows often more than a foot 

 in depth. The trunk is usually bare of hmbs for a hundi'ed 

 or two hundred feet, clearing the forest cover completely 

 before throwing out its angular stout arms. These 

 branch at last into rounded masses of leafy twigs, whose 

 density and brilliant color express the beauty and vigor of 

 eternal youth in a tree which counts its age by thousands 

 of years already. 



To see this Big Tree in blossom one must visit the high 



