A VISIT TO THE BIG TREES. 301 



Tree Valley. He stopped as one enchanted, feeling 

 like Gulliver when lost in the field of barley in 

 Erobdignag the deer were forgotten, and he gazed 

 with utter astonishment on monsters of vegetation 

 such as he had never even dreamed of as existing in 

 the world. He told his companions of his adventure 

 on his return, but all laughed at his story as a bare- 

 faced attempt to impose upon their credulity ; and it 

 was with the greatest difficulty he succeeded in in- 

 ducing some of them to accompany him to the spot, 

 and verify his statements by actual inspection and 

 measurement. 



The newly discovered trees, called Washingtonia 

 iji'j'iitiea by Americans, and Wdlinrjtonia yiyantea 

 by Englishmen, puzzled the botanists sorely. Some 

 declared them to be a species of cedar, which they 

 certainly closely resemble ; others, again, consider 

 them to be of the family of the Taxodia ; while Pro- 

 fessor Lindley doubted whether a new order would 

 not have to be made for them ; and it still appears 

 undecided to what order they properly belong. The 

 seed has been largely exported, and young "Welling- 

 tonias may be seen gracing many an English lawn. 

 Yet, strange to say, although the seed grows readily, 

 and the trees flourish with rich luxuriance wherever 

 they have been planted, both here and in America, 

 they are, in the natural order of things, limited to 

 two tiny valleys about fifty miles apart. Xot a 

 single tree of the kind, except those which have 



