136 Ancient Giants 



knew how long I slept, but when I awoke, I was 

 overpowered with surprise, I could not tell 

 whether I had awakened in eternity, or Time had 

 turned back Ids dial, and carried me back to the 

 old Cretaceous Ocean. At all events however, I 

 found myself lying under a great red-wood tree. 

 Stretching before me to the south as far as the 

 eyes could reach, a mighty ocean lay as level as 

 a thrashers floor to the distant horizon, while to 

 the north an interminable forest on the low-lands, 

 interspersed with countless lagoons and bayous, 

 the oozy margins thickly planted with rush and 

 horse-tail, and tall swamp-grass, while vast quan- 

 tities of moss clogged the shore. East and west, 

 the shore line was undulated by indentations, 

 cut by river or bayou mouth, promontary cape 

 and bay. The heat was excessive, and it was a 

 relief to find shelter under one of these gigantic 

 evergreens whose branches waved above the ever- 

 glades ; deep rooted in the soil, it had already en- 

 dured the blasts of a thousand years. Perhaps 

 this mighty giant had witnessed many a tidal- 

 wave leap the borders of old ocean, and plunge 

 with resistless fury over the lowlands, uprooting 

 trees of weaker fiber, sweeping a waste of peat 

 and wood out to sea, to be returned in mingled 

 masses of vegetation to clog the shore. Its last 

 year's cones and leaflets lay on the ground around 

 me, and put me in mind of the locality I had dis- 

 covered but yesterday, where hundreds of cones 

 and leaflets of the giant sequoia or redwood lay 



