MAMMOTH TREES AND CAVERNS OF CALAVERAS. 73 



boring was completed, some hundreds of tons flowed up so 

 rapidly, that it was difficult to find casks sufficient to preserve 

 the produce. The whole region round is impregnated with 

 the odour of the oil. Long teams of wagons come laden with 

 casks of oil on the roads approaching the wells. Sheds for 

 repairing the casks, and storing the oil, are ranged around. 

 Every one gives indubitable signs by their appearance of their 

 occupation, while rock-oil, as it is called, is the only subject 

 of conversation in the neighbourhood. 



MAMMOTH TREES AND CAVERNS OF CALAVERAS. 

 Gigantic as are the trees found in many of the eastern 

 forests of America, they are far surpassed by groves of pines 

 discovered a few years back in the southern parts of California. 

 They are found in small groves together — in some places only 

 three or four of the more gigantic in size ; in others, as many 

 as thirty or forty, one vying with the other in height and 

 girth. In one grove, upwards of one hundred trees were found, 

 of great size, twenty of which were about seventy-five feet 

 in circumference. One of these trees, of greater size than its 

 companions, was sacrilegiously cut down. Its height was 

 302 feet, and its circumference, at the ground, 9G feet. 

 As it was impossible to cut it down, it was bored off with 

 pump-augers. This work employed five men for twenty-two 

 days. Even after the stem was fairly severed from the 

 stump, the uprightness of the tree and breadth of its base 

 sustained it in its position, and two days were employed in 

 inserting wedges and driving them in ; but at length the 

 noble monarch of the forest was forced to tremble, and then 

 to fall, after braving the battle and the breeze for nearly 

 three thousand winters. 



