352 
58 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. VIII, July, 1954 
DMritonoua, •Itbongfa they may ik>» be nameil in 
the lirt of premioma. 
Earh Committee ia autboriied to recommend 
special premiums opon objects that properly 
belong to the class assigned to them. 
The managers of the Society will be present 
daring tlie Fair to gire directions to all who may 
wish to enter animala or any articles for premi- 
nm or ushibition, and forage will be furnished 
gratis fur all animals entered foi premiums 
The Society earnestly desire to be informed, at 
the earliest possible momeut, how far the differ- 
ent Farmers in the State can co-operate in this 
uixlertsking, and what specimens they intend to 
eshibit — HO that suitable prorisktn may be made 
for their contributions. 
All communications upon the subject, will be 
promptly responded to, and all information cheer- 
fully rendered. 
The announcement of the awards, together 
with appropriate exercises, will take place on the 
last day of the Fair. 
Kisr Address the President, or Corresponding 
Secretary, San Francisco. 
F. W. MACONDKAY, Pre$idtnl. 
E. I.. Beard, Alameda County, 
J. K. Hose, San Francisco Co., 
1 ). W. C. Thompson. Sonoma Co.. 
II. C. Malone, Santa Clara Co., 
IV. N. Thompson, San Francisco Co., 
C. I. Hi'TL'hinson, Sacramento Co., 
J. W. Osborn, Napa Co., 
fice Presidents. 
C. V. Gillespie, Recording Secretary. 
J. h. L. ?. Warren, Corresponding Secretary. 
David CHAMBEK8,of Page, Bacon &Co., '/Veojurer, 
Dr. C. F. Wmslow's Letters from the 
^onntains. 
THE “BltT TREE.” 
Mammoth Rsova, 
Au^'Uel 8Ui, Itl^. 
Dear Sir : At half-past three p.m. ycstcrdiiy. wc 
started from Murphy's for the Big Tree, on the 
stump of which I am now writing. The ride is 
fifteen miles long, and is one of the most varied and 
charming which I have ever enjoyed. At first 
you follow a ravine for several miles, hedged 
by sloping and rounded hills, sparsely wooded 
with varieties of the conifera; and in the bottom 
of this vrinibi a clear brook which forms the streara 
of the Union Water Company, for supplying the 
miners with water during the dry season at Mur- 
phy’s Camp. Subsequently the beautiful ravine 
opens into a broad vale, which at last is lost 
the geutle slopes and varying aspcctsof landscape 
that swell and charm the eye in all directions. 
A great variety of pines, oaks and other trees 
and shrubs add ftnish and endless charm to 
this fresh and virgin landscape. After gradu 
ally ascending for some miles by a winding 
and well made carriage road, you reach points 
where the lofty and magnificent pines open and 
afford prospects of distant mountain slopes and 
aammita, covered to the uppermost ridge with 
such grand and magnificent coniferous forests that 
1 will not attempt to describe them. The 
slione with heated and golden beams, and the 
light, softened and mellowed by the radiating 
VupoTS of the highlands, lent tints to the verdant 
wilderness and tov/ering ridges which heightened 
the charms and magnificence of the broad and 
wild panorama. The road was more or less 
shrded all the way by pines so gigantic as to 
awaken in me, who had never before seen thi 
Rfitive and lofty forest scenery of tlie north tem- 
perate sons, tha strongest feelings of wonder 
admiration. I had r.erer before conceived of the 
capacity of the various species of conifera to attain 
euch enormous dimensions. They were often six 
feet through, and from one hundred and thirty to 
three hundred feet high, and so symmetrical and 
perfect in form as to impress me with new and 
aisre commanding ide.-is respecting the force and 
operation of the vital principle presiding over the 
nourishment and growth of organixed bmlies. 
Tho delicate and symmetrical development of 
lome of these towering and gigantic vegetable 
forms filled the mind with emotions of the beau 
tifal, aitailar to those felt at beholding the most 
perfect models cf the human form wrought from 
marble or delineated on canvass. There they 
stand against the deep blue sky. cell having 
added to cell by slow processes of growth, 
kined by the breath of the Almignty, until they 
have alUined such strength as to defy the ordi- 
nary methods of violent destroctioo. All along 
the last few miles of tho road I was filled with 
itppressions wholly mw, and often involuntarilr 
Earrendcred mymlf to the idea that I was ap- 
pfooching the riaiblo and actual presence of the 
Great One, who rralined himself to Moaes oi 
heights of Sinai. Such sublime tlionghts have 
rarely impressed my mmiI, and it is only here, in ' 
the midHt of these living wonders of the mountain 
forests, that such conceptions have been awak- 
ened to their complete height of grandeor and j 
awe. On the summit of these lofty mountains, 
I the columns of this great temple of nature. | 
I am compelled to bow down and acknowledge . 
the utter nothingness of mortal man and the in- 1 
finite greatness of the power thst hovers sround | 
the globe snd weaves a germ from the dust of the 
earth that shsll outlast sixty human generations. 
But another order of refliction.s crowd upon the 
mind. What changes have transpired in the con- 
dition of people and of Slates since the gena shot 
wn the root on which I reconi these thoughts. 
The golden age had not yet dawned on the Ro- 
enipire, and the anceslers of the preseat pol- 
ished races of Great Britain, France and Germany, 
were naked and wandering savages in the bleak 
and snowy forests of northern Europe. Within 
this time the man of Narjvreth and the prophet of 
Mecca have overturned the dogmas and idolatrous 
worship of tho benighted nations of Asia and 
Europe, and, like tho wavo.s of the ocean. little 
and great kingdoms have arisen, and, iselting 
away, mingled their elements with each other, 
until no trace exi.sU of their former bounds or 
grandeur. How strangely intere.sting are all these 
multitudinou.s events when crowded by contrast 
into a space of time occupied by the growth and 
life of a single tree on these Alpine and lonely 
heights. If the lifetime of a single vegetable germ 
.shall outlast and look down on all these stripes 
and' transactions of the race.s of man for two 
thou.sand years ; how ancient must be the earth, 
the parent and the stage of them all 7 
The height of this spot above the ocean i.s 
rather less than five thousand feet, and it is two 
thousand four hundred feet above Murphy’s Camp. 
Tho road, gradually ascending for several miles 
over a varied landscape, become.^ afterward.s more 
level, or rather it undulates snd winds for a long 
stretch among hills and vallies thickly woo<ied. 
and fit for farm.s. and deer parks. During the 
last three miles the ascent is steady and through 
virgin wilderness of pines, firs, spruce, arbor 
vines and other cone bearing trees, whose magni- 
tude perceptibly incrca.scs with the altitude of the 
locality. The whole surface of the hill sides is 
covered with herbage or plants, more or less ver- 
dant. and in spots there is a freshness to the venlurc 
which reminds one of .spring, and which contrasts 
strongly with the arid and dusty plains and hills 
of the lower sections of country. The wild rasp- 
berry, strawberry, pea ami har-elniit mingle their 
humble or more prominent foliage with the diver- 
sified undergrowths of the forests, and here and 
there new and attractive flowers struck my eye 
so pleasingly that I was compelled at limes to 
stop, gather, examine and admire them. The 
charm of these regions to the botanist would be 
in the freshness and luxuriance with which nature 
elaborates her vegetable forms. The vital princi- 
ple, stimulated by tho condensing vapors of the 
cool fresh of night, and nourished by a suitable 
pahiiliim in the decomposing soil, acts with a 
steady energy, and thousands of stately trees stud 
the hills in all directions, so lofty as to ainaac the 
observer and to compel him w hen near them to 
strain his eyes to catch a view ol their topmost 
oHshoots. But the most amazing of all those vege 
table productions is here, and nature, by peculiar 
geognoslic arrangements, seems to have isolated 
them to startle and arrest the attention of man 
kind, and to strengthen scientific truth, leaching 
the special distribution of organic races. So fur 
a.s known, the vegetable growth to which the 
name of ‘’ Jig Tree” has been attached, grows in 
no other region of the Sierra Nevada, nor on any 
other mountain range of the earth. It exists here 
only, and all the individuals of it* kind, so far 
I can learn, are localised to this vicinity. They 
are embraced within a range of two hundred 
acres, and arc cnclo.scd in a basin of coar.se silici- 
OU3 material, surrounded by a .sloping ridge of 
sicnilie rock, which in some places proji-cts above 
the soil. The basin is recking w ith moisture, and 
in the lowest places the water is standing, aud 
some of the largest trees dip their roots into the 
pools or water-runs. The trcc.s of very large di 
mensions number con.siderably mure than one 
hundred. Mr. Blake measured one ninety -four 
feet in circumference at the root ; the side of which 
had been partly burnt by contact with another 
tree, the head of which bad fallen against it. The 
latter can be measured four hundred and fifty 
feet from its head to iU root A large portion of 
this fallen monster is still to be seen snd 
examined; and by the measurement of Mr, 
Lapham, the proprietor of the place, it ia said 
to be ten feet in diameter at three hundred 
and fifty feet from it* uptom root In fell- 
ing it bad prostrated another large tree in it* 
course, and prised out the earth beneath itself no 
im to be imbedded a number of feet into the 
ground. It* diameter across its root, I* forty feet. 
A roan is nothing in comparison of dimensions, 
while walking on it or standing near its side. 
This to me was the greatrot wonder of the forest. 
The tree which it prostrated in felling baa been 
burnt hollow, and is so large, a gentleman who 
accompanied us from Murphy’s informed us, that 
when he first vi.sited the place two years ago. he 
rode through it on horseback for 200 feet without 
stooping, hut at one spot as he entered at the root. 
We all walked many scores of feet through it. but 
large piece of its side has fallen. in near the head 
But there are many standing whose magnitude 
absolutely oppress the mind with awe. In one 
place, three of these gigantic objects gi 
by side, as if planted with special reference to 
their present appearance. Another so mon.strous 
to ab.solutely compel you to walk around it, 
and even linger, is divided at from fifty to a hun 
dred feet from the ground into three of the» 
Blraight mammoth trunks, towering over three 
hundred feet into the sky. There are others, 
whose proportions are as delicate, symmetrical, 
clean and straight as small spruces, that rise three 
hundred and fifty feet from tho ground. In one 
spot a huge knot of some ancient prostrate giant 
isible aliove the soil, where it fell ages ago. 
and the earth has accumulated so as nearly to 
obliterate all traces of its former existence. The 
wood of this tree, I am told by Mr. Lapham, is 
remarkable for its slow decay. When first cut 
down its fibre is white, but it soon becomes red- 
dish, and long exposure makes it as dark as ma 
hogany; it is soft and resembles in some respects 
pine and cedar. Its hark, however, is much unlike 
these trees ; nearest tho ground it is prodigiously 
thick, fibrous, and when pressed on has a peculiar 
feeling of elasticity. In some places it is eighteen 
nches thick, and resembles a ma-ss of cocoa-nut 
husks thickly matted and pressed together, only 
the fibrous material is exceedingly fine, and alto- 
gether unlike the husk of the cocoa-nut. This 
hark is fissured irregularly with numerous inden- 
tations, which give it the appearance of great 
quality and roughness. A hundred and fifty feet 
from the ground it is only about two inches thick 
the living tree, which is now being stript of its 
bark for transportation from the country. 
The cone of this' tree ia small and compact, and 
nearly regularly oval ; and although the tree itself 
is the largest of the conifera, its fruit is as small 
that of the dwarfish pines of North Carolina and 
Cape Cod. Its foliage is not, as a general thin 
altogether agreeable to the eye, a.s the head of the 
tree is small in proportion to the size snd height 
of the trunk. But the boughs, when examined 
more clo.scly. are bright-green, rather com plicated 
and delicate in structure, and pleasing to the mind 
by contrast with the rough snd gigantic stem 
and branch from which they spring. 
The name that has been applied to this tree by 
Prof. Bindley, an Engli.sh botanist, is Wellingto- 
nia Gigantea. By him it is declared to be so 
much unlike other conifera as not only to be i 
new .species, hut to require description as a nen 
genus. Other botanists, of eminence, think differ 
cnlly. To this, however, he has seen fit to apply 
the name of an English hero, a step indicating as 
much personal arrogance or wc.vkness as scientific 
indelicacy ; for it must hare been a prominent 
idea in the mind of that person that American 
Naturiili.sls would regard with surprise and re- 
luctance the application of a British name, how- 
ever mcritoriou.sly honored, when a name so 
worthy of immortal honor and renown as that of 
\V ASHING TON would Strike the mind of the world 
a.s fur more .suitable to the most gigantic and re- 
markable vegetable wonder, indigenous to a coun- 
try, where liis name is the most distinguished 
ornaiiieiit. As he and his generation dcclaretl 
themselves indejicndent of all English rule and 
political dicuiliun. so American Naturalists must 
ill this case cxpre.ss their respectful dissent from 
all Briti.sh scientific “ stamp acts.” If the “Big 
Tree ” be not a Taxodiuin, let it be called now 
and forever Tcurodium ll'ashingtonium. If it 
should he properly ranked as a new genus, then 
let it be called to the end of time, M'asAingtonia 
Catifornica. The generic name indicates unpar- 
alleled greatness and grandeur ; its specific name, 
the only locality in the world where it is found. 
No names can be more appropriate, and if it be in 
accordance with the views of American botanists, 
I trust the scientific honor of our country may be 
vindicated from foreign indelicacy by boldly dis- 
carding the name now applied to it, and by aflSx- 
ing to it that of Um imnmrUl mas wboM memory 
we all love and honor, and toarh uur chililr«n la 
■e. Before many age* Rhall elapw ihr roiH- 
hand of man, or climatic changi-s, may totallj 
annihilate the few giante of this reroarkahle-ra-r 
now growing on ami confined to this small 
in the Sierra Nerada. .Seeds indeed mar !.« 
planted and means employed to prolong iU rxiM. 
eaee elaewlsere, but few spot* of earth. perhajM 
I, will be so eligible for its natural and 
pletc development as its pre-sent locality. I'mif, 
any and all eircumstanres, however, whvllm (.f 
perpetuity or extinction, the name of IVelliiiKtua 
should be di^airded, and that of Wasiiingi..^ 
attachal to it, and transmitted to the srhuiuU of 
future ages. 
At this place is a very excellent public hi>ii-« 
kept by an urbane proprietor, who .v|>nrci| 1,9 
pains tointcre.st us and give all inforinatiun in hu 
power. The half 1 hcanl or saw, I have not ii,u„| 
here. The hotel is built near the “ Big Tnv.'' 
whose bark was stripped last year and exliihii,q 
in San Francisco. An appendage of the Iiuum.- u 
built over it, and it constitutes a hall fur cotilliu,, 
iwrlies ; at the root it measures nincty-si.\ f«-l ii, 
circumference, snd a portion of its prostrate truck 
is used for a bowling alley. To overthruw it 
holes were bored through it wjlh a large auger, 
and after the trunk was mostly scparatol, 
tempts were made to wetlge snd upset it. Ilm 
its immense size snd weight prevented the niiciv-,s 
of this undertaking, and on the fourth day it fell 
by the force of a strong wind. In fulling, it con- 
vulsed the earth, and by its weight forced the soil 
from beneath it so that it lies in a great treiM-li, 
and mud and stones were driven near a liimdreil 
feet high, where they hare left their marks on 
neighboring trees. 
The coolest, purest, choicest water in the world 
is here. I have never tasted such water in all 
my wanderings over the earth. The well that 
supplies it is sunk twenty- two feet, through coarse 
sienitic sand snd fine angular gravel, ajqiareiiUy 
the mere unwashed detritus of the neighboring 
ridges of the ba.sin, and the water stands twelve 
feet deep in the well. 
Here we Rpent the night ; rose early and in- 
spected the forests, and contributed a large share 
of blood for the mainlcnaiico of the numerous 
musketos that infest the luxuriant uniler-growitis 
of the moist and teenxing soil. The abundance of 
these pertinacious and renoinous creatures was 
the only drawback to our enjoyment ; but I have 
seen them no where cl.se, away from the della, 
and even during the night the cool temperature 
destroyed their activity here. 
The night spent here was delightful. The moon 
shone with unparalleled splendor, and the nliiio.s- 
pherc was .so pure that it seemed as if the stars 
of heaven had quadrupled in numlier. 1 .shall 
never forget this night, nor the first glimpses of 
the rising moon as her mild and pensive lieams 
penetrated the waving foliage of two mighty 
giants not far from me. O glorious orb I how 
thou stealcst the heart from strong men’s breasts, 
and on t’ly lambent beams Iransporle.st ilalhwart 
a continent and layc.st it down in the silent cham- 
bers of the beloverl ! Only assure us that thoa 
lendcst it thy pencils to paint pleasant dreams 00 
the slumbering souls of the little and the weary, 
and wc will yield it gladly and rejoicingly to thy 
benign sway. As silent a.s is thy voice and iufia- 
ence, so sweetly shall that heart pass to its re- 
po.sc; and the imagc.s of the distant and beloved 
shall rise or vanish as thy beams brighten or the 
night grows dark. 
Respectfully, yours, C. F. Winslow. 
Rain in Sacra.mento. — We were at our 
“ Home” in Sacramento on the morning of the 
21st, and were surprised on awakening to find a 
cool, cloudy morning — and at .6 a. .m. to find the 
rain falling as gently as one of our old faHhiontd 
“April showers,” in New England. After the 
preceding hot Sunday, the change was most 
agreeable. The air had a most delicious frc.-Ji- 
ness — the birds sang their songs anew — children 
awoke merrily — the iambs were seen to sport 
friskily, and nature robed herself with a clcaa 
blue above and a bright green beneath. O there 
was a freshne.ss that made all feci happy, for 
the memory of such showers awoke scenes of 
by-gone days, and the tear-drop stood in the eye 
of all, like as the dew-drop upon the new opened 
flower. 
To Remove Masks raoM Tables. — Ho* 
dishes sometimes leave whitish marks on var- 
nished tables, when set, as they should not be, 
carelessly upon them. To remove it, pour som* 
lamp oil on the spot, and rub it hard with a loft 
cloth. Then pour on a little spirits, snd rub i* 
dry with another cloth, and the white mark w>U 
dinppear, fearing the table as bright at btlore. 
Fig. 1. Original description by Winslow of Taxodium Wa^hlngtonium and Wasbingtonia Californka. 
