69 



north of 49" down into the Lower California pcninsuhi. A 

 factor in its present limited range, says the United States Forest 

 Service, is the strange geological transformation that some 

 hundreds of centuries ago came over what is now California. 



The Biblical prophecy that the valleys shall be exalted and the 

 rhountains made low was very literally fulfilled in California 

 some aeons before it was uttered by Isaiah. In the high moun- 

 tain ranges of those days, running up to 20,000 feet or more in 

 height, came a volcanic disturbance, so that molten lava poured 

 through the valleys and stream channels, filling them up and 

 blocking the streams. After the lava had cooled, it was so much 

 harder than the granite of the original mountains that it resisted 

 erosion as the granite could not. As a consequence, the granite 

 peaks wore away, and the lava beds remained, until finally 

 lava-covered ridges towered above deep canyons worn in the 

 native stone, and streams flowed and still flow many thousand 

 feet below the level of the streams once shaded by the Bigtree's 

 grandsires. 



Not long ago miners in the Tahoe National Forest working a 

 gold mine 2,500 or 3,000 feet below the lava cap of one of the 

 Sierra peaks, in one of the former streambeds, came across an 

 old flood deposit in which were the tangled logs of a group of the 

 Sequoias that once grew on the mountain slopes. Though 

 buried for unknown thousands of years, the logs were in ex- 

 cellent preservation. They were changed somewhat in struc- 

 ture, but tlie annual rings in a cross-section of the wood stood 

 out as plainly as though the trees had been felled only a few 

 days before. 



During the last thousand years the Bigtree of to-day has not 

 reproduced appreciably, and at one time foresters felt that it 

 was a dying species. Recently, however, efforts have been 

 made, and with considerable success, to start plantations of the 

 tree throughout California, outside of its present range. 



Small plantations have been made in the Klamath National 

 Forest in the northwest corner of the State, near Lake Tahoe in 

 the central part, and in the Sequoia National Forest in the 

 southern Sierras. In each of these localities the tree has far 

 outstripped the native conifers. Even in competition with 

 brush, which suppresses young pines and firs severely, the Big- 

 tree has been able to develop successfully. In the 12-year 



