42 
A BUNCH OF FIB CONES. 
[Nature and Art, February 1, 1867. 
was planted on the mound in the Jardin des 
Plantes in Paris, and the other was for many 
years entirely lost sight of, until M. Herat dis- 
covered it growing in the grounds of the Chateau 
de Montigny, near Montereau, a small town about 
eighteen leagues from Paris. 
“ High on a hill a goodly cedar grew 
Of wondrous length and straight proportion, 
That far abroad her dainty odours threw, 
’Mongst all the daughters of proud Lebanon.” 
The Deodara is another exotic cedar of great 
grace and beauty. We are indebted to the high 
mountain-ranges of India and Cashmere for this 
elegant addition to our parks and pleasure-grounds. 
Its name is derived from the Hindoostanee word 
Devadara, or tree of the gods. The wood is strong 
and durable. Many very ancient temples which 
have fallen into ruin, have beams and supports of 
deodara timber in them but little changed by time. 
In certain districts the resinous splinters of deodara 
are used as torches, and carried at night by those 
who travel amongst the precipices and jungles. 
For another highly ornamental and, thanks to 
acclimatization, familiar member of the Coniferse, 
the Araucaria imbricata, we owe our gratitude to 
the explorers of the Andes. To the Araucan 
Indians its pine-nuts yield a wholesome and sub- 
stantial food ; whilst its resinous exudations are 
extensively used by them, both externally and 
internally, as medicinal agents. The timber is also 
very valuable for many important purposes. The 
trivial name “ Puzzle Monkey,” sometimes given to 
this tree, is derived from the numerous needle- 
pointed scales which cover the stalk and branches, 
offering such a serious impediment to the climbings 
and frolics of those lively animals. 
Ib; turning for a brief glance amongst the cedar 
woods and their pleasant shades, the White Cedar 
( Thuja occidentalis) stands before us beautiful as 
she is useful. Her comely daughters, although tall, 
stout, and stately as any family of daughters (even 
of the forest) need to be, sink into pigmy propor- 
tions, and become veritable Minnie Warrens, when 
compared with their colossal cousins the Mammoth 
trees of California. These woodland giantesses were 
discovered in the year 1850, by a Mr. W. White- 
head, in a comparatively small locality about ninety- 
seven miles from Sacramento City. Here, within 
little more than fifty acres, stand 103 such trees as 
the whole known world cannot equal. Twenty of 
these average seventy-five feet in circumference. 
Some few years since, a huge member of this 
family, known as the “ Big Tree,” was felled, not by 
the axe or saw, but by boring a complete circle of 
auger-holes round and into its enormous mass. 
Twenty-two days were occupied by five men in 
completing its overthrow, by the introduction of 
numerous wedges, when the computed growth of 
three thousand years came thundering and crushing 
to the earth. This vegetable Goliah measured 302 feet 
high, and 96 feet in circumference at its base, and 
the bark measured nearly a foot in thickness. A 
double bowling alley has been established on the 
fallen trunk ; and on the stump, which stands five 
feet six inches from the ground, thirty-two persons 
danced four sets of cotillons without being in the 
slightest degree incommoded for space ; sufficient 
room being left for musicians and a fair number of 
spectators. This curious and unique ball-room, 
when planed smooth, was found perfectly sound 
wood, and measures about 92 feet in circum- 
ference. The Mother of the Forest is the largest now 
left standing. In 1854 the bark was removed to the 
height of 96 feet from the ground for exhibition. 
It measures at the base 84 feet, twenty feet from 
the ground 69 feet. Its height is 321 feet, and the 
first branch is thrown off at 137 feet from the earth. 
Calculation gives the quantity of timber it contains 
as 437,000 feet of sound inch lumber. 
The Father of the Forest, who lays prostrate and 
half-buried in the earth, must have been of even 
more huge growth than his venerable spouse. His 
height is computed to have been 435 feet, circum- 
ference at base 110 feet, 200 feet to the first branch, 
and at 300 feet from its root, where it broke in 
falling, it measures 54 feet round. A number of 
fanciful names, such as the Old Maid, the Old 
Bachelor, the Three Graces, Ac. &c., have been 
given by travellers to individuals and groups of 
these curious and interesting trees, which stand in 
towering and venerable majesty, like vast mono- 
liths or obelisks reared in commemoration of the 
past ages of the mammoth and the mastodon. 
There are certain primeval forests of pines in the 
neighbourhood of Astoria, which for the mag- 
nificent trees they contain are scarcely to be sur- 
passed. The work of clearing them away for the 
prosecution of agricultural pursuits would almost 
appear a labour of ages, so closely do these huge 
vegetable towers stand to each other. The soil 
on which these forests grow is extremely fertile. 
Yet with all the rich supply of natural mould 
stored up below, it is difficult to conceive how the 
assimilative powers of the trees could, even 
through the ages of their existence, heap up 
and garner the elements requisite to build them up 
to their present stature ; and we are led, on behold- - 
ing these wonders of Nature’s producing, to reflect on 
the races, dynasties, and nations which have passed 
away during the growth of these grand old forests. 
Even the very species of bird or animal by whom 
the tiny cone seed from which they sprang was 
perchance deposited beneath the fallen leaves, may, 
like the Dodo, or the Dinornis, have passed away 
and become extinct and forgotten, save by the in- 
vestigator of the earth’s. secrets. 
Unlike the Sanibertiana, or Rocky Mountain 
Pine, which bears cones of twelve and even sixteen 
inches in length, and nearly a foot round, the 
Sequoia gigantea, or mammoth tree of California, 
which we have described, yields a remarkably small 
fruit, even much less than that of many cone-bearing 
trees of this country, still not the less welcome to 
our bunch of cones, which having roughly gathered 
on our way, we present as an offering to our reader 
and companion, hoping that this is not the last 
ramble we may take together in search of Natiere’s 
treasures. 
