328 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



that they probably are verging to extinction. 

 But the verge of a period beginning in cretaceous 

 times may have a breadth of tens of thousands 

 of years, not to mention the possible existence of 

 conditions calculated to multiply and reextend 

 both species and individuals. No unfavorable 

 change of climate, so far as I can see, no disease, 

 but only fire and the axe and the ravages of 

 flocks and herds threaten the existence of these 

 noblest of God's trees. In Nature's keeping 

 they are safe, but through man's agency de- 

 struction is making rapid progress, while in the 

 work of protection only a beginning has been 

 made. The Mariposa Grove belongs to and is 

 guarded by the State ; the General Grant and 

 Sequoia National Parks, established ten years 

 ago, are efficiently guarded by a troop of cavalry 

 under the direction of the Secretary of the In- 

 terior ; so also are the small Tuolumne and Mer- 

 ced groves, which are included in the Yosemite 

 National Park, while a few scattered patches and 

 fringes, scarce at all protected, though belonging 

 to the national government, are in the Sierra 

 Forest Reservation. 



Perhaps more than half of all the Big Trees 

 have been sold, and are now in the hands of 

 speculators and mill men. Even the beautiful 

 little Calaveras Grove of ninety trees, so histori- 

 cally interesting from its being the first dis- 

 covered, is now owned, together with the much 



