THE SEQUOIA 271 



measured restraint in their reach which keeps 

 them within bounds. No other Sierra tree has 

 foliage so densely massed or outline so finely, 

 firmly drawn and so obediently subordinate to 

 an ideal type. A particularly knotty, angular, 

 ungovernable-looking branch, five to eight feet in 

 diameter and perhaps a thousand years old, may 

 occasionally be seen pushing out from the trunk 

 as if determined to break across the bounds of the 

 regular curve, but like all the others, as soon as the 

 general outline is approached the huge limb dis- 

 solves into massy bosses of branchlets and sprays, 

 as if the tree were growing beneath an invisible 

 bell glass against the sides of which the branches 

 were moulded, while many small, varied depar- 

 tures from the ideal form give the impression of 

 freedom to grow as they like. 



Except in picturesque old age, after being 

 struck by lightning and broken by a thousand 

 snowstorms, this regularity of form is one of the 

 Big Tree's most distinguishing characteristics. 

 Another is the simple sculptural beauty of the 

 trunk and its great thickness as compared with its 

 height and the width of the branches, many of 

 them being from eight to ten feet in diameter at a 

 height of two hundred feet from the ground, and 

 seeming more like finely modeled and sculptured 

 architectural columns than the stems of trees, 

 while the great strong limbs are like rafters sup- 

 porting the magnificent dome head. 



