82 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
the surface of the water, far above him, raging in a terrific 
storm. — . 
Many young trees of the Sequoia gigantea, produced from 
the seed, are growing in gardens in California, in the Eastern 
states, and in Europe. 
The mammoth tree is found only in a few small groves, of 
which six or seven are known, though probably there are 
many in unexplored parts of the Sierra Nevada. Three of 
these groves are in Mariposa county, one in Calaveras, one in 
Tuolumne, and one in Tulare. 
The three Mariposa groves are within two miles of each 
other. The second one in size contains eighty-six trees; the 
third thirty-five. The Tuolumne grove contains ten trees, one 
or two of which are said to be thirty-five feet in diameter. 
The Calaveras mammoth grove was the first discovered, and 
attracts the greatest number of visitors. There are in this 
grove ten trees thirty feet in diameter, and eighty-two between 
fifteen and thirty, making ninety-two over fifteen feet through. 
One of the trees, which is down, must have been four hundred 
and fifty feet high and forty feet in diameter. The “ Horse- 
back ride,” one of the notabilities of the place, is a hollow 
trunk, which a man can ride upright through on horseback, 
seventy-five feet. 
In 1854, one of the largest trees, ninety-two feet in circum- 
ference and three hundred feet high, was cut down. Five men 
worked twenty-two days in cutting through it with large au- 
gers. On the stump, which has been smoothed off, there have 
been dancing-parties and theatrical performances; and for a 
time a newspaper, called the Big Tree Bulletin, was printed 
there. 
At the same time that this tree was cut down, another was 
stripped of its bark for a distance of one hundred and sixteen 
feet from the ground. This tree continued green and flourish- 
ing two and a half years after being thus denuded, and did not 
begin to show signs of dying until a very hard frost came in 
the winter of 1856~57. Although seven years have passed 
