THE SEQUOIA 291 



timber is not only beautiful in color, rose red 

 when fresh, and as easily worked as pine, but 

 it is almost absolutely imperishable. Build a 

 house of Big Tree logs on granite and that house 

 will last about as long as its foundation. In- 

 deed fire seems to be the only agent that has 

 any appreciable effect on it. From one of these 

 ancient trunk remnants I cut a specimen of the 

 wood, which neither in color, strength, nor 

 soundness could be distinguished from speci- 

 mens cut from living trees, although it had cer- 

 tainly lain on the damp forest floor for more than 

 three hundred and eighty years, probably more 

 than thrice as long. The time in this instance 

 was determined as follows : When the tree from 

 which the specimen was derived fell it sunk itself 

 into the ground, making a ditch about two 

 hundred feet long and five or six feet deep ; 

 and in the middle of this ditch, where a part 

 of the fallen trunk had been burned, a silver 

 fir four feet in diameter and three hundred and 

 eighty years old was growing, showing that the 

 Sequoia trunk had lain on the ground three 

 hundred and eighty years plus the unknown time 

 that it lay before the part whose place had been 

 taken by the fir was burned out of the way, and 

 that which had elapsed ere the seed from which 

 the monumental fir sprang fell into the prepared 

 soil and took root. Now because Sequoia trunks 

 are never wholly consumed in one forest fire and 



