xxxi] WASHINGTON TO SAN FRANCISCO 163 



On our way back I turned off at the foot of the hills to 

 visit the Calaveras Grove of big trees which my brother and 

 niece had seen before, and I had to sleep on the way. I 

 stayed three days, examining and measuring the trees, collect- 

 ing flowers, and walking one day to the much larger south 

 grove six miles off, where there are said to be over a thou- 

 sand full-grown trees. The walk was very interesting, over 

 hill and valley, through forest all the way, except one small 

 clearing. At a small rocky stream I found the large Saxi- 

 fraga peltata growing in crevices of rocks just under water, 

 and I passed numbers of fine trees of all the chief pines, firs, 

 and cypresses. At the grove there were numbers of very fine 

 trees, but none quite so large as the largest in the Calaveras 

 Grove. Many of them are named. " Agassiz " is thirty-three 

 feet wide at base, and has an enormous hole burnt in it 

 eighteen feet wide and the same depth, and extending 

 upwards ninety feet like a large cavern ; yet the tree is in 

 vigorous growth. The Sequoias are here thickly scattered 

 among other pines and firs, sometimes singly, sometimes in 

 groups of five or six together. There are many twin trees 

 growing as a single stem up to twenty or thirty feet, and then 

 dividing. But the chief feature of this grove is the abundance 

 of trees to be seen in every direction, of large or moderate 

 size, and with clean, straight stems showing the brilliant 

 orange-brown tint and silky or plush-like glossy surface, 

 characteristic of the bark of this noble tree when in full 

 health and vigorous growth. In no forest that I am ac- 

 quainted with is there any tree with so beautiful a bark or 

 with one so thick and elastic. 



In the chapter on "Flowers and Forests of the Far 

 West" (in my "Studies"), I have given a summary of the 

 chief facts known about these trees, with particulars of their 

 dimensions and probable age. I need not, therefore, repeat 

 these particulars here. But of all the natural wonders I saw 

 in America, nothing impressed me so much as these glorious 

 trees. Like Niagara, their majesty grows upon one by living 

 among them. The forests of which they form a part con- 

 tain a number of the finest conifers in the world — trees that 



