San Andreas independent., 1856-10-25
The Mighty Cedars of California.

sit Is forest, yet nothing that we mean
by forest There is no underground,
scarcely anywhere rock; the surfaces are
as beautifully turned as if shaped by
landscape gardener, and dotted all over by
myriads of flowers, more delicate, if not
more various than any garden ever grew.
Moving along these surfaces, rounding
over hill, or galloping through some 81
lent valley, winding here among the native
oaks, casting their round shadows, and
among tall pines and cedars, drawing their
huge conicle shapes on the ground, we
seem, in fact, to be riding through some
vast park. Indeed, after we had seen this
and taken their impression, we think of
nothing but to call it the park of the Lord
Almighty. The other trees we observed
were increasing in size as we neared the
place, till finally, descending gently along
western slope among the files of little
giants, we came to the gate of the real
giants, emerging into the cleared ground
of the Big. Tree Hotel, between the two
sentinels, which are 500 feet high, and
stand only far enough apart for the mar
row road to pass between. These were
the first Of the Washington cedars we had
seen; it really seemed that we had never
seen tree before. And yet they were
only specimens.
Close by the house lay the first cut of
the Big Tree, par emanence; the remain
ing part, or top, had been split up or re-
moved. Near this first cut stood the
stump, about six feet high, with an arbor
mounted on the top, which had been squar-
ed down for this purpose, the posts of the
arbor standing out in the line of the largest
circuit at the ground, and the space be-
tween them and the circuit of the top filed
in by floor of short boards The diane
ter Of the top is by measurement twenty
five feet one way, and twenty-three and
one-half feet the other. The diameter at
the ground was thirty-one feet. They are
all included in the space of fifty acres, and
are only about ninety in number. The
ground occupiedis rich wet bottom, and
the foot of the moist northwestern slope
adjacent covered also with an underground
and aohy are they here, Just here and no
achere elseP This, | confess, is to me the
greatest, strangest wonder of all, that no.
where on the whole earth is there another
known example of these Anakims of the
forest; ninety seeds alone have been star
ted, ninety, and no more. Is there, was
there no other piece of ground but just
this in the whole world, that could ftly
take the seeds of such growth? Why
have they never spread, why has no one
seed of the myriads they sprinkle every
year on the earth, ever started in any 9th
er locality?
And what starting it is when such a
seed of life begins to grow. Little did
that tiny form Of matter, about the size Of
a parsnip seed, and looking more like it
| than any other, imagine what it was going
to do, what feelings to excite when it star
ted the first sproutings of the Big Tree!
We measured an enormous sugar pine
recently felled. Sixty feetfrom the ground
it was six feet in diameter, and it was two
hundred and forty feet high; we emeasured
one of the PROSTATE giants, and two hun
dred and forty feet from the ground itwas
SIX feet In diameter The top was gone,
but it could not have been less than three
hundred and fifty feet high. And yetthis
tree was only eighteen feet in diameter
where the Big Tree was twenty-five. IF
the Big Tree were followed, one might
drive the largest load of hay through it
without even contact
Many of the trees, and all the largest Of
them that remain, are greatly injured by
fire. Their time is therefore shortened,
and long will it be required to bring the
smaller ones to their maximum of growth
A man, instigated by the internal love of
money, should have cut down the biggest
of them, and skinned the next, one hun
dred and twenty feet upwards from the
ground (viz., the Mother) that he might
show, or sell the bark of her body, both
sound as rock at the heart, and good for
thousand years to come-O, it surpasses
all thought And yet to sec this Giant
Mother still growing up as before, bearing
fresh foliage, rlpening her seeds, and re-
fusing to die, hiding still her juices, and
working her pumps in the deep masses of
her barkless body, which the sun of two
whole years has not been able to season
through, dead as it's, and weather cracked
wlthout--it is a sight SO grand as almost
to compensate for the loss we suffer by the
folly of the human vandal. .0-DR. BUSH
NELL.
Rg-It is said that Tom Moore, one night
while stopping at an inn in Scotland, w
continually troubled by the landlady with
the request that he should write her epi-
taph. Accordingly, at night he gave i'm