IO 
PINETUM BRITANNICUM. 
It would appear, from the account already quoted of Mr Black’s proceedings, that the time stated to 
have been occupied in felling the trees at Calaveros Grove is either exaggerated, or was unnecessarily long. 
Being twice the diameter, it might require four times the work; but 25 men for 5 days gives more 
than eight times the work. It also shews, what we know from the specimens of the wood itself, that 
the timber is extremely soft, very light, and easily worked, in appearance not unlike the Cedar-wood used 
for pencils, but much lighter: when freshly cut it is white, but speedily acquires the Cedar hue. It is so 
brittle, that one of the trees cut down by Mr Black, in falling snapped in three places before it reached 
the ground, carrying away whole forests of Picea nobilis and Pine trees before it; and we see, from the 
various figures and photographs which at different times have been sent home of the trees, that a great 
proportion of them look as if they had been broken off near the top. It seems as if a third of their height 
had been carried away; and it has been suggested that, but for the loss of their tops, those trees, now only 
300 feet in height, would have been standing 450 feet high. But the remarkable thing is, that all the 
mature trees grow up straight and columnar for enormous distances, and none of them ever taper off 
in the same proportion to the point. Other Conifers, as the Pines and Firs, grow in a regular proportion, 
as shewn in fig. 32 ; but the Wellingtonia , when it has almost reached its extreme height, suddenly contracts 
its breadth, and makes a rapid and abrupt termination, as in fig. 33. The suggestion that this has arisen 
from the top having been broken off by winds can, however, scarcely 
apply to all; and the knowledge regarding its early proportions which we 
now possess rather suggests a different explanation. We see in these 
young trees a repetition of the top growth of the old ones : an enor¬ 
mously disproportioned (according to our ideas of Conifers) breadth at 
the base compared with the height [fig. 34]. For example, a tree at 
Basing Park, 14 feet high, was 2 feet 9 inches in circumference at 6 
inches from the ground ; and only 1 foot 6 inches at 4 feet from the 
ground; and a fine example at Bedgebury Park is 15 feet high, and 
3 feet 10 inches in circumference at the ground, and 1 foot 10 inches at 
3 feet from the ground. In fa6t, its proportionate breadth at the base is 
just about double that of other Conifers. In Abies Douglasii , for in¬ 
stance, the circumference of the base is from an eighth to a tenth of that 
of the height. In Wellingtonia we see that it is a fourth of the trunk. 
We, therefore, rather imagine that the abrupt termination, which we see in the figures and photographs of 
the old trees, is natural, and not the result of breakage by winds, and is one of nature’s adaptations to pro¬ 
tect the tree from its own fragility ; that the growing green part is always comparatively obtuse, and carries 
its obtuseness with it up the tree, but that it ceases where the trunk becomes solid and leafless. This 
is sufficiently proved by the fad, that the relative proportion of the diameter of the base to the height is the 
same in both young and old trees, although in the young the slope is equal from base to top [fig. 34], while in 
the old [fi^. 33] it is not: the form in the one being that of an extinguisher, in the other that of an obelisk. 
We know of no dicotyledonous tree whose timber is so excessively soft, light, and brittle. These are, 
of course, anything but valuable properties, where strength, tenacity, and hardness are wanted. But every¬ 
thing has its use, if we only knew what it was ; and we may rest assured that the wood will be found to be 
the most valuable and fittest that could be procured for some purpose not yet thought of, but which, in due 
time, will occur to some ingenious practical person. But if the wood is brittle, the bark is not. Mr Black 
and his friends found it a great deal worse to cut through than the wood. It is tough and stringy, like coir 
or the husk of a coco-nut, and is from a foot to a foot and a half in thickness. It furnishes a striking- 
instance of those compensatory arrangements by which we find the existence of contradictory qualities in 
the same individual reconciled. 
It is obvious that if the Wellingtonia , being so fragile, were coated with bark of only a common thick¬ 
ness and ordinary consistence, it could never live to be a tree : it would be snapped across so soon as it 
reached 
Fig- 32- 
