SCENERY 81 
gigantea only on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, be- 
tween latitudes 34° and 41°. The tree has the great pecu- 
liarity that it bears two kinds of leaves: those on the young 
trees, and on the lower branches of larger ones, are about five- 
eighths of an inch long and an eighth wide, and are set in pairs 
opposite each other, on little stems; the other kinds of leaves, 
growing on the branches which have borne flowers, are trian- 
gular, about an eighth of an inch long, and they lie close down 
to the stem. The cones are not much larger than a hen’s egg, 
whereas the cones of many smaller conifers of the coast are 
larger than pine-apples. The seeds of the Sequoia gigantea 
are not more than a quarter of an inch long, a sixth wide, and 
almost as thin as writing-paper. The bark is reddish-brown 
in color, of a coarse, dry, stringy, elastic substance, and very 
thick—on the largest trees not less than eighteen inches. The 
wood is soft, elastic, straight-grained, free-splitting, light when 
dry, and red in color. It bears a close resemblance to red cedar, 
but the grain is not quite so even. The wood is very durable. 
The mammoth tree grows in a deep, fertile soil, and is al- 
ways surrounded by a dense growth of other evergreens, such 
as various species of pine, fir, spruce, and Californian cedar. 
The scenery in these forests is beautiful. The trees grow very 
close together; and the trunks, usually from a foot to two feet 
in diameter, rise in perfect perpendicularity, and with little or 
no diminution of size, more than a hundred feet without a 
limb: and while all is perfect stillness and rest and shadow on 
the ground, the traveller, looking to where the sunbeams are 
perceptible here and there on the thick foliage, can see the 
flexible tops swinging from side to side in the roaring moun- 
tain-breeze. The soil, being never visited by the sun, is always 
moist, and produces a luxuriant and beautiful little undergrowth 
of mosses, flowers, and berries. When in such forests, I have 
at times compared myself to a merman, who, while at the bot- 
tom of the ocean, amid a large growth of queer sea-weed, and 
surrounded by beautiful shells and the treasures of a thou- 
sand wrecks, should look from his abode of peace, and see 
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