CHAPTEE IX 



THE SEQUOIA AND GENERAL GRANT NATIONAL 

 PARKS 



The Big Tree {Sequoia gigantea) is Nature's 

 forest masterpiece, and, so far as I know, the 

 greatest of living things. It belongs to an 

 ancient stock, as its remains in old rocks show, 

 and has a strange air of other days about it, a 

 thoroughbred look inherited from the long ago 

 — the auld lang syne of trees. Once the genus 

 was common, and with many species flourished in 

 the now desolate Arctic regions, in the interior of 

 North America, and in Europe, but in long, event- 

 ful wanderings from climate to climate only two 

 species have survived the hardships they had to 

 encounter, the gigantea and sempervirens, the 

 former now restricted to the western slopes of 

 the Sierra, the other to the Coast Mountains, and 

 both to California, excepting a few groves of 

 Redwood which extend into Oregon. The Pacific 

 Coast in general is the paradise of conifers. 

 Here nearly all of them are giants, and display 

 a beauty and magnificence unknown elsewhere. 

 The climate is mild, the ground never freezes, 



