290 OUR NATIONAL PARKS. 



the remains of so many rare and interesting men. 

 The name of my hermit friend is John A. Nelder, 

 a fine kind man, who in going into the woods has 

 at last gone home ; for he loves nature truly, and 

 realizes that these last shadowy days with scarce a 

 glint of gold in them are the best of all. Birds, 

 squirrels, plants get loving, natural recognition, 

 and delightful it was to see how sensitively he 

 responds to the silent influences of the woods. 

 His eyes brightened as he gazed on the trees that 

 stand guard around his little home ; squirrels 

 and mountain quail came to his call to be fed, 

 and he tenderly stroked the little snowbent sap- 

 ling Sequoias, hoping they yet might grow 

 straight to the sky and rule the grove. One of 

 the greatest of his trees stands a little way back of 

 his cabin, and he proudly led me to it, bidding me 

 admire its colossal proportions and measure it to 

 see if in all the forest there could be another so 

 grand. It proved to be only twenty-six feet in 

 diameter, and he seemed distressed to learn that 

 the Mariposa Grizzly Giant was larger. I tried 

 to comfort him by observing that his was the taller, 

 finer formed, and perhaps the more favorably 

 situated. Then he led me to some noble ruins, 

 remnants of gigantic trunks of trees that he sup- 

 posed must have been larger than any now 

 standing, and though they had lain on the damp 

 ground exposed to fire and the weather for cen- 

 turies, the wood was perfectly sound. Sequoia 



