THE SEQUOIA 277 



fifty feet of its brash knotty top smashed off in 

 short chunks about the size of cord-wood, the 

 beautiful rosy red ruins covering the ground in 

 a circle a hundred feet wide or more. I never 

 saw any that had been cut down to the ground 

 or even to below the branches except one in the 

 Stanislaus Grove, about twelve feet in diameter, 

 the greater part of which was smashed to frag- 

 ments, leaving only a leafless stump about sev- 

 enty-five feet high. It is a curious fact that all 

 the very old Sequoias have lost their heads by 

 lig-htninff. " All things come to him who waits." 

 But of all living things Sequoia is perhaps the 

 only one able to wait long enough to make sure 

 of being struck by lightning. Thousands of 

 years it stands ready and waiting, offering its 

 head to every passing cloud as if inviting its fate, 

 praying for heaven's fire as a blessing ; and when 

 at last the old head is off, another of the same 

 shape immediately begins to grow on. Every 

 bud and branch seems excited, like bees that have 

 lost their queen, and tries hard to repair the dam- 

 age. Branches that for many centuries have 

 been growing out horizontally at once turn up- 

 ward and all their branchlets arrange themselves 

 with reference to a new top of the same peculiar 

 curve as the old one. Even the small subordi- 

 nate branches halfway down the trunk do their 

 best to push up to the top and help in this curi- 

 ous head-making. 



