THE SECRET OF THE BIG TREES.’ 
By Ellsworth Huntington. 
Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 
In the days of the Prophet Elijah sore famine afflicted the land 
of Palestine. No rain fell, the brooks ran dry, and dire distress pre¬ 
vailed. “ Go through the land,” said King Ahab to the Prophet 
Obadiah, unto all the fountains of water and unto all the brooks; 
peradventure we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, 
that we lose not all the beasts.” When Obadiah went forth in search 
of forage he fell in with his chief, Elijah, and brought him to Ahab, 
who greeted him as the troubler of Israel. Then Elijah prayed for 
rain, according to the Bible story, and the famine was stayed. 
From this famine in Palestine, some 870 years before Christ, to the 
forests of the Sierra Nevadas, in the year of grace 1911, is a far cry. 
The idea of investigating an episode of ancient Asiatic history in the 
mountains of California seems at first sight quixotic. Yet for the 
purpose of facilitating such an investigation the Carnegie Institution 
of Washington furnished funds, and Yale University gave the author 
leave of absence from college duties. The men in charge of both 
institutions realize that the possibilities of any line of research bear- 
no relation whatever to its immediate practical results, or even to its 
apparent reasonableness in the minds of the unthinking. The final 
outcome of any piece of scientific work may not be apparent for gen¬ 
erations, but that does not make the first steps less important. 
Already, however, our results possess a positive value. They demon¬ 
strate anew that this world of ours, with all its manifold activities, 
is so small, and so bound part to part, that nearly 3,000 years of 
time and thrice 3,000 miles of space can not conceal its unity. 
The connecting link between the past and the present, between the 
ancient East and the modern West, is found in the big trees of Cali¬ 
fornia, the huge species known as Sequoia washingtoniana . Every¬ 
one has heard of this tree’s vast size and great age. The trunk of a 
1 This article appeared in the July, 1912, number of Harper’s Magazine, and 
is reprinted here in a revised form with the addition of photographs of some of 
the big trees in the national parks. The field work was necessarily carried on 
in areas outside the parks, as no timber is cut within the reservations.—Editor. 
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