12 
THE SECRET OF THE BIG TREES. 
favorable to the formation of distinct, easily-measured rings. The 
size- of the trees makes the rings fairly thick, and hence easy to 
see. The only difficulty is that the number of trees which have been 
cut is small. The region where they grow is relatively inaccessible, 
the huge trunks are very difficult to handle, and the wood is so soft 
that its uses are limited to a few purposes for which great durability 
is required. Hence several years may pass without the cutting of 
more than a few scattering trees. The resistance of the wood to 
decay is so extraordinary, however, that stumps 30 years old are 
almost as fresh as when cut, and their rings can easily be counted. 
As climatic records they are as useful as trees that were cut the 
present year, if only one can ascertain the date when they were felled. 
Toward the end of May, 1911, I left the train at Sanger, near 
Fresno, in the great inner valley of California, and with two assist¬ 
ants drove up into the mountains through the General Grant National 
Park to a tract belonging to the Hume-Bennett Lumber Co. There 
we camped for two weeks, and then went to a similar region, some 
60 miles farther south on the Tulare River, east of Portersville. Few 
parts of the world are more delightful than the Sierras in the early 
summer. In the course of our work we often tramped through val¬ 
leys filled with the straight, graceful cones of young sequoias over¬ 
topped by the great columns of their sires. Little brooks or rushing 
streams full of waterfalls flowed in every depression, and a drink 
could be had whenever one wished. On the sides of the valleys, 
where the soil is thin and dry, no young sequoias could be seen, al¬ 
though there were frequent old ones, a fact which suggests that 
conditions are now drier than in the past. Other trees, less exacting 
in their demands for water, abound in both their young and old 
stages, and one climbs upward through an array of feathery pines, 
broad-leaved cedars with red bark, and gentle firs so slender that 
they seem like veritable needles when compared with the stout 
sequoias. 
We tramped each day to our chosen stumps, sometimes following 
old chutes made by the lumbermen to guide the logs down to the 
valleys, and sometimes struggling through the bushes, or wandering 
among uncut portions of the primeval forests. Often there was 
frost on the ground during the first week or two, and the. last rains 
of the spring made the ground oozy, while the flat tops of the stumps 
smoked in the summer sun as soon as the clouds disappeared. Our 
method of work was simple. As soon as we reached a place where 
sequoias had been cut, we began prospecting for large stumps. The 
method of cutting the trees facilitated our work by furnishing a 
smooth sawed surface. Before the lumbermen attack one of the 
giants they build a platform about it 6 feet or more above the ground 
and high enough to be clear of the flaring base of the trunk. On this 
