THE SIERRAS AND PACIFIC SLOPE. 6l 



greed. About one-half to two-thirds of the tree is taken. The 

 superb crown, nurtured by the care ot The InHnite, woven into 

 such symmetrical form, gemmed with cones like 

 jewels in a king's diadem, there it lies; its 

 days cut short; its hope' for coming centuries 

 blighted. Say, how do five twenty dollar gold pieces look, beside 

 that glorious shaft crowned by the hand ot the Creator — a tri- 

 bute to His protecting care, with eloquence unspoken, declaring 

 His praise — the winds sounding notes of triumph through those 

 branches as though a. mighty organ voicing Nature's trium- 

 phant song to the great Creator? 



Yet this tree has a marvelous tenacity. It does not want 

 to die. Cut down a catalpa or a chestnut and iromediately 

 sprouts will come up which will soon grow into trees. I think 

 the Redwood is the only cone-bearing tree which does the same 

 thing. From the stump a. cluster of sprouts will arise to take 

 the place of the one that has fallen. The force held in re- 

 serve in that root system, which sends out its feeders near and 

 far, now rushes to the rescue and in a short time the sprouts 

 become saplings and then the saplings, trees. But it takes a- 

 long time to restore the wreck of a thousand years. 



The Sequoia Gigantea. This is the larger of the two and 

 seems almost destined for immortality. Rings have been count- 

 ed on a stump which showed the growth of 4,000 years. A 

 mighty tree when Alexander was driving Darius to the wall — 

 a tree which started well back with Nineveh and Babylon. Mr. 

 Muir tells us that in all his research he never saw one that died 

 a natural death. And he thinks that m.onarchs, the stumps 

 of which have been eaten out by fire, have lain on the ground 

 from three to five hundred years before fully decaying.- The 

 tree has a. marvelous' prepotency if we may apply this term. 

 It yields an enormous amount of seed. These seeds are sent 

 to different parts of the world. If I remember aright I have 

 seen fine specimens growing in Rochester, N. T., and other parts 

 of the East. Without doubt there will be localities both in 

 Europe and America which will be congenial to this wonderful 

 tree. In its own habitat it seems to have an ambition to reproduce 

 itself. Muir counted 536 promising seedlings growing on two 

 acres of rough, avalanche soil. Often the . ground, fire swept, 

 will be covered with these trees. From all that we can gather 

 these seem to be the most thrifty of all our evergreens, and 

 doubtless our Forestry department will_ m'ake careful research 

 for congenial localities where they can be grown in abundance. 



We cannot imagine anything grander than God's mighty- 

 Cathedral in the Tosemite, which He has been thousands of 

 years in building. Did men ever rear such shafts? How mas- 

 sive! Think of pillars twenty-five to thirty feet in diameter, 

 »nd three hundred feet high, supporting a roof kalsomined with 



