8 
PINETUM BRITANNICUM. 
known as the “ Grizzly Giant,” standing on a dry and rather rocky point, and visible to great advantage 
from the absence of many other trees around it. This tree is remarkable for the great size and number of 
its branches, which give it a considerable breadth of top, while in height it is inferior to many around it 
that are much more slender, and even to some of the Pines and Firs of moderate diameter. It measures 
89 feet round the trunk, about 3 feet above the ground; but an additional 10 feet may be allowed for a 
large portion which is burned out of the side, making it, if perfect, about 99 feet in circumference, or 33 feet 
in diameter. Another tree beyond, and about the same girth, is bifurcated about 75 feet from the ground, 
the two parts being nearly equal in size and height. The trunks of two more trees were measured with 
nearly the same result; and on these grounds Mr Blake considers that from 30 to 33 feet may be considered 
the greatest diameter of the trees in this grove, as it also is of those in Calaveros County. There are many 
a few feet smaller than this ; and it is satisfactory to know that there is no lack of young ones coming 
on, ranging from 10 to 20 feet in diameter. There are more than can be conveniently counted, besides 
groves and thickets of young trees of all sizes, from seedlings upwards. 
The fires, however, which have swept through the forest, have destroyed a great number of the young 
trees, and ruined many of the largest and finest by burning at the roots, and running upwards through the 
trunk, in many cases burning out an arched way from side to side, high and broad enough for horsemen to 
pass through without touching. The fires burn out the centre of the tree most rapidly, and make hollow 
cylinders of those that have fallen; a peculiarity doubtless due to the tinder-like softness and porosity of the 
wood, and the density and toughness of the bark. Mr Blake mentions that at Mariposa there was, in 1861, 
a hollow trunk, now consumed, through which horsemen could ride upright for 150 feet, going in at the 
roots, and coming out half-way along the trunk; and when he visited the place, his own party rode erefit 
for many feet into the interior of one which had fallen. In a low marshy part of the valley a line of medium¬ 
sized trees may there be seen growing on each side of a very ancient trunk, now completely decayed and 
moss-grown. All the appearances there indicate that trees have grown and fallen across each other for 
ages, giving extraordinary depths of vegetable mould. 
Professor Brewer tells us (in a letter to Dr Hooker, published in the “Linnsean Society’s Proceedings,” 
vol. viii. p. 274) that the largest tree he saw in the Mariposa Grove was 106 feet in circumference at 4 feet 
from the ground. It had lost some buttresses by fire, and must have been at least 115 or 120 feet when 
entire : it is 276 feet high. He adds that the Indians tell of a much larger tree, which he did not see. 
We have given a coloured plate, drawn from a photograph, of one of these Mariposa trees, which 
was 64 feet in circumference. 
We quote the following details regarding the trees in this grove, from an account of a seed-colledting 
expedition, published in the “Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal” (April i860). The expedition 
was undertaken by Mr Patrick Black, a young Irish gentleman, in 1859, l° n g before the grove was so 
well known as it is now: 
“ Well supplied with ammunition, he took his departure for the Mariposa Grove, which is a long way in the outer world : not that it is with¬ 
out its own inhabitants, its own hotel (kept by an old hunter), nay, even its own authorities, as Mr Black had like to find to his cost. He took up 
his quarters with the old hunter, who may rather be said to have kept open house than an hotel, as the sky was the only roof he had ; a roof, appar¬ 
ently, not yet being considered essential to the comforts of an hotel in these parts, although one might have thought that it would, seeing that the 
grove is about 5000 feet above the level of the sea, and there was frost every night while Mr Black was there. 
“He visited the grove daily, shooting down a cone or two to make sure that they were ripe before he should begin to make his colledtion. He 
soon found, however, that it would take a battery of ammunition and an army of sharpshooters to make even a moderate collection of seeds. 
The seed is exceedingly small and thin, a mere scale, and the cone is also small (not much larger than the cone of an ordinary Scotch Fir), so that 
the produCt of the whole week’s shooting might be held in one’s waistcoat pocket. Mr Black soon tired of this ; and seeing one or two trees of 
less size than the others, came to the conclusion that it would be easier to fill his wallet by cutting down a tree than shooting down the cones ; so, 
boldly putting behind him the fear of the anathemas of the “ New York Herald,” and of the “ Gardeners’ Chronicle,” as well as the nearer terror 
of the local authorities, he at once, with the assistance of his host and two Frenchmen (that the three most civilised nations in the world might all 
be represented in the perpetration of the sacrilegious deed), proceeded to put his intent into execution. They first seleCled the smallest tree in the 
grove ; it was 24 feet in circumference, and took Black and the hunter three days’ hard work to level with the ground, one cutting on each side of 
the tree. Increase of appetite growing by what it fed on, another and another fared the same fate, until they had actually cut down four of these 
magnificent 
