BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 19 



to plant all the mountain ranges of the world." But very few of the millions of seeds 

 which fall to the ground germinate, "and of those that do perhaps not 1 in 10,000 

 is suffered to live "through the many vicissitudes of storm, drought, lire, and snow- 

 crushing that beset their youth." 



AGE OF THE BIG TREES. 



The extreme age attained by the Big Tree is still an unsettled ques- 

 tion. Statements on the subject vary considerabl}^, some appearing to 

 be exaggerations. One great difficulty, however, in settling the ques- 

 tion ot^age, at least for existing trees, is the lack of a proper number 

 of trunk sections on which to count the rings of annual growth, thus 

 giving unquestionable data on age. 



Ring countings from prostrate and burned or deca3^ed trunks and 

 sections of trees felled for other purposes than ring counting, have 

 largely furnished the basis of the age estimates made so far, and from 

 these countings age estimates have been made for trees of other sizes 

 which could not of course be cut down. 



These generalizations not being based on ring countings from a 

 -cries of trunk sections representing the full range in diameter of all 

 trees now known, the statements as to the extreme age possible for 

 these trees are necessarily approximative. It is the opinion of Mr. 

 Hutchings that the average rate of growth is 1 inch of diameter for 

 every twelve years, which would make a tree 25 feet through 3,600 

 years old. Mr. Muir's observations also roughly corroborate this 

 theory. He writes: 



Under the most favorable conditions these giants probably live 5,000 years or more, 

 though few of even the larger trees are more than half as old. I never saw a Big 

 Tree that had died a natural death; barring accidents they seem to be immortal, 

 being exempt from all the diseases that afflict and kill other trees. Unless destroyed 

 by man they live on indefinitely until Imrned, smashed by lightning, or cast down 

 by stom:is, or by the giving way of the ground on which tliey stand. The ago of one 

 that was felled in the Calaveras Grove, for the sake of having its stump for a dancing 

 floor, was about 1,300 years, and its diameter, measured across the stump, 24 feet 

 inside the bark. Another that was cut down in the Kings Kiver forest was about 

 the pame size, but nearly a thousand years older (2,200 years), though not a very 

 Id-looking tree. It was felled to procure a section for exhibition, and thus an 

 opportunity wa.s given to count its annual rings of gnjwth. The (u^lossal scarred 

 monument' in the Kings River forest mentioned above is burned half through, and 

 I spent a day in making an estimate of its age, clearing away the cliarred surface 

 with an ax and carefully counting the annual rings with the aid of a pocket-lens. 

 The wood-rings in the section I laid l)are were so involved and contorted in somo 

 places that I wa.s not able to determine its age exactly, but I counted over 4,000 

 rings, which showed that this tree was in its prime, swaying in the Sierra winds, 

 when Christ walked the earth. No other tree in the world, as far as I know, has 

 looked down on so many centuries as the Sequoia, or opens such impressive and 

 suggestive views into history. 



These estimates are confirmed by the most recent investigations on 

 the age of the Big Tree. 



GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF THE BIG TREE. 



Perhaps more impressive even than the size or age of the Big Tree 

 is the pa.st life of the species. As already stated, the fossils show the 

 present sui*vivor to be the remnant of a once numerous family. 

 Dr. Asa Gray writes: 



The same Sequoia which abounds in the same Miocene formations in Northern 

 Europe haa been abundantly found in those of Iceland, Spitzbergen, Greenland, 



