1 64 MY LIFE [Chap. 



in Europe or in any other Northern forest would take the 

 very first rank. These grand pines are often from two hundred 

 to two hundred and fifty feet high, and seven or eight feet in 

 diameter at five feet above the ground, where they spread 

 out to about ten feet. Looked at alone, these are noble 

 trees, and there is every gradation of size up to these. But 

 the Sequoias take a sudden leap, so that the average full- 

 grown trees are twice this diameter, and the largest three 

 times the diameter of these largest pines ; so that when first 

 found the accounts of the discoveries were disbelieved. My 

 brother told me an interesting story of this discovery. The 

 early miners used to keep a hunter in each camp to procure 

 game for them, venison, and especially bear's meat being 

 highly esteemed. These men used to search the forests for 

 ten or twenty miles round the camps while hunting. The 

 hunter of the highest camp on the Stanislaus river came 

 home one evening, and after supper told them of a big tree 

 he had found that beat all he had ever seen before. It had 

 three times as big a trunk as any tree within ten miles round. 

 Of course they all laughed at him, told him they were not 

 fools : they knew what trees were as well as he did ; and 

 so on. Then he offered to show it them, but none would go ; 

 they would not tramp ten or twelve miles to be made fools 

 of. So the hunter had to bide his time. A week or two 

 afterwards he came home one Saturday night with a small 

 bag of game ; but he excused himself by saying that he had 

 got the finest and fattest bear he had ever killed, and as next 

 day was Sunday he thought that six or eight of them would 

 come with him and bring the meat home. 



The next morning a large party started early, and after 

 a long walk the hunter brought them suddenly up to the 

 big tree, and, clapping his hand on it, said, " Here's my fat 

 bear. When I called it a tree, you wouldn't believe me. 

 Who's the fool now?" This was the great pavilion tree 

 of the Calaveras Grove, twenty-six feet in diameter at five 

 feet from the ground — over eighty feet in circumference, so 

 that it would require fourteen tall men with arms out- 

 stretched to go round it. This tree was cut down by boring 



