108 
TIMBER 
cedar ; it varies a good deal, is sometimes brittle and cross 
grained, sometimes soft and fine grained, but always very 
durable; rather liable to split, not generally used for 
carpentry work in Great Britain, though sometimes for 
drawer linings and a good deal for shop signs, etc. ; will 
not take polish. It comes from San Francisco and neigh- 
bourhood, where it is one of the chief building timbers, 
in conjunction with yellow and sugar pine, and is also 
used largely there for panelling as a substitute for 
plastered walls, and largely for shingles ; it comes to the 
EngHsh market generally in planks of two inches thick 
and upwards, but, although practically free from sap and 
not liable to twist or warp, it is not much appreciated there. 
The colour is a bright, clear red, sometimes reddish yellow, 
turning darker on exposure, and with thin, nearly white 
sapwood. The wood is very light, when well dried, weighing 
only about 18 lbs. per cubic foot. This tree is rapidly being 
converted into lumber ; about 35,000,000 cubic feet were cut 
in 1905. 
The so-called "big trees" of California, formerly called 
Wellingtonias, now called Sequoia iv ashing toniana, are found 
in small groves scattered along the west slope of the 
Sierra Nevada mountains, amongst the yellow and sugar 
pine and Douglas fir and the allied species, S. sempervirens, 
" from the middle fork of the American river to the head 
of Deer Creek, a distance of 260 miles." The utmost search 
only reveals ten groups, and the total number of these 
remarkable trees does not exceed 500. They are, however, 
unique, the grandest, oldest, and most massive stemmed — 
not quite the tallest— in the world. These two Sequoia 
species are the only remains of the genus of big trees 
which flourished in the temperate zone of three continents 
before the glacial epoch, when the great ice wave came 
down from the north, and one after another the luxuriant 
