580 4 THE REDWOODS. Book III. 
of sandhills, here overgrown with a variety of shrubs, there 
extending bare and barren like a little patch of the Sahara, 
or presenting a scanty but interesting flora of various herbs 
and flowers, highly attractive to the botanist. 
If the rambler continues his walks over the higher por- 
tion of the hills, in the direction towards the ocean, he will 
find himself at last on the brow of a perpendicular pre- 
cipice, with the waves of the Pacific breaking below his 
feet. Here, sitting on the very edge of the rock, he may 
look down upon the feats and gambols of different species 
of seals, slowly ascending, with the aid of the successive 
waves of a violent surf, the pointed cliffs that rise in the 
midst of its roar and foam ; till, on a sudden, the whole 
crowd, from the largest to the smallest, taking advantage 
of some mighty wave to carry them away from the cliffs, 
plunge down into the boiling sea, whence their round heads 
soon reappear in all directions, as they swim about to 
begin their pranks and frolics anew. 
Fifty or sixty miles to the south of San Francisco, on 
the eastern side of the coast range, is a region called the 
Redwoods. It derives its name from having been covered 
with a forest of the redwood pine, a sort of Taxodium very 
similar in growth and appearance to that other Californian 
species which has become famous by its gigantic dimen- 
sions, and which different botanists have called Taxodium 
giganteum, Washingtonia gigantea, and Wellingtonia gi- 
gantea. Speculation has long since taken possession of 
that region, and the greater number of the redwood trees 
of the locality have been brought to the ground by the axe, 
and transformed into boards and lumber of every kind by 
numerous saw-mills. The trade in lumber at that spot 
has given rise to a town called Redwood City. The 
mountains and hills of this region had been observed 
