278 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



The great age of these noble trees is even more 

 wonderful than their huge size, standing bravely 

 up, millennium in, millennium out, to all that 

 fortune may bring them, triumphant over tem- 

 pest and fire and time, fruitful and beautiful, 

 giving food and shelter to multitudes of small 

 fleeting creatures dependent on their bounty. 

 Other trees may claim to be about as large or as 

 old : Australian Gums, Senegal Baobabs, Mexican 

 Taxodiums, English Yews, and venerable Lebanon 

 Cedars, trees of renown, some of which are from 

 ten to thirty feet in diameter. We read of oaks 

 that are supposed to have existed ever since the 

 creation, but strange to say I can find no definite 

 accounts of the age of any of these trees, but 

 only estimates based on tradition and assumed 

 average rates of growth. No other known tree 

 approaches the Sequoia in grandeur, height and 

 thickness being considered, and none as far as I 

 know has looked down on so many centuries or 

 opens such impressive and suggestive views into 

 history. The majestic monument of the Kings 

 River Forest is, as we have seen, fully four thou- 

 sand years old, and measuring the rings of annual 

 growth we find it was no less than twenty-seven 

 feet in diameter at the beginning of the Christian 

 era, while many observations lead me to expect 

 the discovery of others ten or twenty centuries 

 older. As to those of moderate age, there are 

 thousands, mere youths as yet, that — 



