538 THE UNIVERSE. 



The bark of the trunk of one of these giants of the 

 American forests was transported in part to the Crystal 

 Palace at Sydenham, where it formed one of the most 

 splendid curiosities, until accidentally destroyed by fire in 

 18G6. It was a monstrous column, above 130 feet in height, 

 and which at the level of the ground had a diameter of 

 nearly thirty-four feet. I stood inside this tree along with 

 fifteen people. At San Francisco a piano was placed and 

 a ball given to more than tAventy persons on the stump of 

 a Wellingtonia which had been brought thither. The age 

 of this colossus corresponds to its dimensions. By count- 

 ing the number of annual rings in a transverse section, it 

 Avas ascertained that these monstrous trees must be 3000 

 or 4000 years old, so that they seem to have been con- 

 temporary with the biblical creation, and have stood erect 

 and unshaken amidst all the commotions of the globe. 



Alongside of these giants stretched prostrate on the 

 ground, man only looks like a pigmy and feels his little- 

 ness. He calls them the mammoths of the forest, to show 

 that, like those frightful animals which surpassed all others 

 in their size, they tower above all the vegetal)le kingdom. 

 One of these cedars, hoUoAved out into a deep cavern, 

 OAves its name of "the Riding School" to the fact, that a 

 man on horseback can penetrate sixty-five feet into the 

 dark excavation. 



When from these noble trees, proudly cleaAdng the 

 clouds Avith their tops, Ave pass to those Avhose humble 

 stem creeps upon the ground, Ave find that even the lat- 

 ter at times acquire a length which has something of the 

 prodigious in it. 



Struck Avith the aspect of the Adnes in Italy, the mani- 

 fold garlands of which entAvine from branch to branch 

 and disappear amid the foliage of the trees Avithout our 



