570 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol XII. No. 302. 



have already been noticed in Science, and 

 equally good results may be expected from the 

 work of the field party sent out early this year. 

 The number of visitors during the current year 

 is estimated at 350,000. Special effort has been 

 made to put the Museum in touch with the 

 public schools by issuing loan collections and 

 by the ' Prize Essay Contest. ' In the separate 

 report on this it is interesting to note that the 

 subjects most frequently chosen were those ob- 

 jects that appealed most strikingly to the eye. 

 While this is only natural, yet it calls attention 

 to the fact that while a museum may be a col- 

 lection of labels illustrated by specimens, there 

 is considerable danger that the label will be 

 overlooked by the average visitor unless there 

 is something about the object itself, or the 

 manner in which it is shown, to attract atten- 

 tion. 



Something of glamor hangs over the white 

 cattle of Chillingham and Cadzon ; they have 

 been sung by poets and engraved by Bewick, 

 the Chillingham herd has literally been within 

 one of extinction and finally some authorities 

 have considered these cattle as direct descend- 

 ants of the vanished Urus. The last writer to 

 discuss them is R. Hedger Wallace, who has 

 undertaken an exhaustive Inquiry into their 

 origin and history, whose results are published 

 in the Transactions of the Natural History Society 

 of Glasgoiv. While Mr. Wallace explicitly 

 states that his paper must not be considered as 

 final, he yet states as his opinion that the white 

 cattle are simply the descendants of Roman 

 cattle imported into England during the Roman 

 occupation. An extensive, though confessedly 

 incomplete, bibliography of works and articles 

 relating to the 'Bovidfe,' wild and domesti- 

 cated, living and extinct, is appended. 



F. A. L. 



BOTANICAL NOTES. 

 THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



Not long ago the staff of the Division of For- 

 estry of the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture prepared a most valuable and sug- 

 gestive report on the big trees of California, 

 which was issued as a Senate document, and 

 afterwards published as a separate paper by 

 the Department. The purpose of the report is 



to call attention to the groves of these great 

 trees, and to enlist sufiicient interest in them to 

 secure their preservation. Their fine wood has 

 tempted the lumberman, and in spite of their 

 unwieldy size they are felled and split and 

 sawed into lumber to such an extent as to 

 threaten the utter destruction of many of the 

 groves. 



There are ten main groups of groves of the 

 big trees scattered along the west side of the 

 Sierra Nevada range, ' from the middle fork of 

 the American River to the head of Deer Creek, 

 a distance of two hundred and sixty miles.' 

 Probably not more than five hundred trees in 

 these groups are remarkable for their size. 



The only grove thus far safe from destruction 

 is the Mariposa, while ' the finest of all, the 

 Calaveras Grove, with the biggest and tallest 

 trees ' has recently (April, 1900) come into the 

 possession of a lumberman who quite certainly 

 intends to cut the trees into lumber. 



The report should be read by every lover of 

 trees, and every effort should be made to have 

 Congress take steps to preserve several of the 

 finest of these groves. The excellent half-tone 

 plates from photographs add interest and value 

 to the paper. 



THE AGE OF THE BIG TREES OP CALIFORNIA. 



In the report issued by the Division of For- 

 estry in the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture referred to above, a discussion is made 

 of the age of the Big Trees. The conclusion is 

 reached that their age runs far up into the 

 thousands, the great age of five thousand j'ears 

 being mentioned, apparently with approval. 

 The writer of this note once counted with much 

 care the rings of growth of a tree which was 

 felled in 1853, and whose stump constitutes the 

 floor of the so-called dancing pavilion. This 

 count was made from circumference to center, 

 and every ring in all that distance was counted, 

 no ' estimates ' or guesses being made. The 

 result was that eleven hundred and forty -seven 

 (1,147) rings were counted, and accordingly it 

 is safe to say that this tree, which was fully 

 twenty-four or twenty-five feet in diameter, 

 and considerably more than three hundred feet 

 in height, acquired these dimensions in eleven 

 hundred and forty-seven years. The writer 

 entertains grave doubts whether any of the ex- 



