SEQUOIA WELLINGTON I A. 
*5 
same article, the statement occurs that “ the author of this article saw in 1849 (that is, the year before the 
discovery of the Wellingtonia ), upon the lofty plateaux which are crossed by Lassen’s route (now part of 
the county of Shasta), a number of trees, the bark of which had all the characters of that of the Welling¬ 
tonia, notwithstanding that their size did not exceed three or four feet in diameter.” 
This locality is very much out of the range within which the Wellingtonia has yet been found; and 
seeing that that occupies a well-defined relative position on the mountains, both as regards elevation and 
direction, we have little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the trees seen by this author were, in 
all probability, not Wellingtonias. 
History. —The Sequoia semperuirens, or a species most closely allied to it, S. Langsdorfii, existed 
in the Miocene epoch both in Europe, Polar America, and California, and has survived the Glacial 
epoch, and come down to us in its present form. No traces of an imbricated form of Sequoia, from which 
we might infer the existence of Wellingtonia, have, however, been met with. It is perhaps, therefore, not 
an improbable conjecture, that it did not appear until after the Glacial epoch; and that it was to the change 
in climate which then took place that its appearance is to be referred. We have seen that it occupies 
a position along the west flank of the Sierra Nevada, at from 4000 to 5000 feet of elevation. Most plants 
which occupy a position high in altitude have their representatives also in a more northerly locality at a 
lower level. The Wellingtonia has not. We hold the view laid down in the “ Geographical Distribution 
of Animals and Plants,” * that neither plants nor animals readily change their original specific birthplace ; 
and that the northern hemisphere has gradually been recovering its heat since the Glacial epoch, and 
still continues to do so. In conformity with that view, we imagine that the Wellingtonia appeared at 
the time when the Sierra Nevada was 5000 feet lower than it now is : that is, when the locality of the 
Sierra, where Wellingtonia is now found, was level with the sea, and when the climate at that lower level 
corresponded with that of the higher level which it now occupies. Such speculations, if only presented 
as speculations, are perfectly admissible. The following out the trains of thought suggested by similar 
hypotheses or theories has done much to enlighten us on the past history of the globe. 
Leaving them, however, and turning from the region of fancy to that of fact, from the geological to the 
historical times, we know this much of the early history of the trees from the annual rings of growth, that 
the groves where they now grow have existed for at least 1000 years, probably thousands of 1000 years. 
They were discovered by civilised people in 1850, but were previously well known to, and admired 
by, the native Indians, who called them Wa-wo-nak, meaning Great Tree. Their ancestors must have 
paused awe-stricken under their shade or ever Columbus crossed the Atlantic; and they still know more 
about them than the settlers in North-Western America. They speak of trees larger than any yet known 
to the latter. But so far as the researches of the civilised explorers have gone, the places where groves of 
the tree have been met with are only those above-mentioned. 
Who of the reading and writing races first discovered them is already matter of uncertainty and 
dispute. Douglas makes the following remark, in a letter published in Hooker’s “ Companion to the 
Botanical Magazine,” vol. ii. p. 150:— 
“ But the great beauty of Californian vegetation is a species of TaxocLium, which gives the mountains a most peculiar, I was almost going to 
say awful, appearance, something which plainly tells us we are not in Europe. I have repeatedly measured specimens of this tree 270 feet long, 
and 52 feet round at 5 feet above the ground. Some few I saw upwards of 300 feet high, but none in which the thickness was greater than 
those I have instanced.” 
This passage led to the belief that the Wellingtonia was first seen by Douglas in his Californian 
explorations ; but this is now known to be a mistake. Mr William Lobb has shewn, from the route fol¬ 
lowed by Douglas, and which is perfectly known, that he never came within a hundred and twenty miles 
of 
* “ Geographical Distribution of Mammals,” by Andrew Murray. Day & Son, London. 
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