SAVING THE REDWOODS 



521 



in their present form, nourished in Cali- 

 fornia before the mammals developed 

 from their humble, insectivorous ances- 

 tors in the Mesozoic, and while the dino- 

 saurs* were the most advanced form of 

 land animals. 



The mountains upon which these trees 

 now stand contain fossil records of early 

 Sequoia-like trees, proving that this 

 group abounded before the rocks that 

 constitute the present Sierra and Coast 

 Ranges were laid down in shallow seas, 

 to be upheaved later and eroded into 

 their present shapes. In the base of 

 Mount Shasta and under its lava flows, 

 the ancient rocks are marked with im- 

 prints of their leaves and cones. Such 

 antiquity is to be measured not by hun- 

 dreds of thousands, but by millions of 

 years. 



THE BIG TREES OCCUR IN ISOLATED GROVES 



While the duration of the family, of 

 the genus and even the existing species, 

 or species so closely allied as to be al- 

 most indistinguishable, extends through 

 such an immense portion of the earth's 

 history, the life of the living trees is cor- 

 respondingly great. 



The Sequoia is not only the oldest liv- 

 ing thing on earth, but it is the tallest 

 tree in the Western Hemisphere, and we 

 have no reason, so far as our paleobo- 

 tanical studies have gone, to believe that 

 there ever existed on earth either indi- 

 vidual trees or forests that surpassed in 

 size, in girth, in height, or in grandeur 

 the Sequoias of California. And these 

 are the trees that are being cut for grape 

 stakes, for railroad ties, and for shingles. 



While the purpose of this article is to 

 deal with the redwoods of the coast 

 rather than the big trees of the Sierra, 

 both of the genus Sequoia, a description 

 of the redwood should be preceded by a 

 few words on the big tree. 



The big trees, Sequoia gigantea, are 

 found on the western slope of the Sierra 

 Nevadas, in California, at an altitude of 

 from five to eight thousand feet above 

 the sea, with a north and south range of 

 about 250 miles. They do not constitute 

 a solid stand, but occur in more or less 

 isolated groves, and growing with them 



* See "Hunting Big Game of Other Days," 

 by Barnum Brown, in the National Geographic 

 Magazine for May, 1919. 



are other huge trees, chiefly white fir, 

 incense cedar, sugar and yellow pine. 



These groves are about thirty-two in 

 number and are much scattered and iso- 

 lated in the northern part of their range, 

 while in the south they are larger and 

 closer together. This distribution shows 

 that the big tree is on the decline, the 

 various groves having long since lost 

 touch with each other, while in the north 

 the reproduction is very poor. They all 

 grow in spots sheltered by surrounding 

 forests, and the slopes of the Sierra are 

 more or less windless, but now that the 

 white man has taken the land they would 

 soon be destroyed for their valuable lum- 

 ber, unless artificially protected in na- 

 tional parks. 



They have suffered throughout the 

 ages from ground fires. Their extraor- 

 dinarily thick bark, which is from one- 

 half to two feet through, is a great pro- 

 tection, and although its heart has been 

 burned out, a tree lives on so long as 

 this bark and its underlying cambium 

 layer can reach the earth. 



If protected by human care, the big 

 tree has remarkable recuperative power, 

 and many specimens in the Giant Forest 

 of the Sequoia National Park show an 

 accelerated growth, owing to their im- 

 munity from fire even for a few decades. 



These trees are from five to twenty- 

 five feet in diameter at shoulder height 

 above the ground, and in the Giant For- 

 est alone there are said to be 5,000 trees 

 of more than ten feet in diameter. 



The height varies from 150 to much 

 more than 225 feet, and as they are 

 without taproots, they stand absolutely 

 straight, often without branches from 

 the ground to a height of 175 feet. 



WHY THE TREES' CROWNS ARE DEAD 



The crown usually is dead ; not blasted 

 by lightning, as has been often asserted, 

 but because ancient fires have eaten in 

 at the base, so that the flow of sap to the 

 top has been checked. 



When connection with the ground and 

 the life-giving water supply has been 

 strongly re-established, growth takes 

 place from the topmost uninjured 

 branches and forms a new, but false, 

 crown. 



It is estimated that if these trees had 

 escaped upsetting by the wind, and had 



