THE GREAT WASHINGTON CEDAR. 21 



except the Yellow Cedar or Cypress ( Oupressus Nutkaeims), 

 which is a little tougher, stronger, perhaps more elastic, and 

 equally durable, if one may be allowed to judge apart from 

 thorough tests and careful data, which the apathy or igno- 

 rance of some Governments appear to deem unworthy their 

 sublime attention. There are in California a thousand times 

 more and better kinds of naval timbers on Government lands 

 as important to preserve as the Live Oaks of the South 

 Atlantic States. It would not in the least surprise me if, after 

 due investigation, California would be found to possess a vast 

 amount of the best naval timber in the world, and a hun- 

 dredfold more lasting than the best now in use, if we except 

 a few of which there is no adequate supply worth mention- 

 ing anywhere. 



THE GREAT WASHINGTON CEDAR. 



(Sequoia gigantea.) 



•• If I will that he tarry, 'till I come, what is that to thee." 



— The last of John. 



WE cannot give a full history of this wonderful tree 

 here, suffice to say, briefly, for in this we chiefly col- 

 late from Mr. J. Muir, who has best said, substan- 

 tially: "The great Sequoian timber belt lies along the 

 Sierras upon the first exposed mountain side," moraines of 

 recent retiring glaciers that face the Pacific from Calaveras 

 on the north, to near the head of Deer Creek on the south, 

 a distance of two hundred miles, or little above thirty-eight 

 degrees north to a little below thirty-six degrees; altitude, five 

 to eight thousand, rarely eight thousand four hundred feet, 

 broken by two gaps; each forty miles wide, caused by manifest 

 topographical and glacial reasons given; one gap between 

 Calaveras and Tuolumne, the other between Fresno and 

 King's River; thence the vast forest trends south across the 

 broad basins of Kaweah and Tule, a distance of seventy miles, 

 on fresh moraine soil ground, from high mountain flanks by 

 glaciers. The inscriptions (we have often examined with 



*Aa historic truth demands^ it is but just to say, I. myself, took Mr. Lobb to the 

 California Academy of Sciences, and showed him the first specimens he ever saw of 

 this marvelous, now world-renowned. Washington Cedar, which was so named by 

 me, before he ever saw the tree. This fact is well known to the old charter mem- 

 bers of the Academy, several of whom are still living; it is therefore the earliest 

 among common names, and claims precedence, by all courtesy, in point of time, as 

 also in appropriateness of honor. Our relations to its earliest identification we leave 

 to the historian of the future. . 



