The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-07-07
Correspondence Pac. Commercial Advertiser.l

Honolulu, June %. 1859.
Mr.. EDITOR II notice among the items in your
paper of this date the following Statement
The age Of the great California tree, estimated by the count
of the annual layers of wood, is o,4os years"
This. with certain additional remarks, rejecting
upon the credibility of the Mosaic record, which you
had the good sense to omit, has been going the rounds
of the papers for SOM time past; and similar state
ments about the age of California " Big Trees have
often been made since their discovery.
Permit me to say that these estimates are very
much exaggerated. The statement I have quoted, as
well rs the method of arriving at the supposed fact,
is but a fair sample of the readiness with which GER
tain shallow and superficial observers are accustomed
to jump at conclusions. and to manufacture evidence
apparently damaging to the commonly received Bible
chronology.
The real age of the largest living tree is at most
only about 1850 years. How then shall we explain
the process by which a pre-adamic antiquity is
secured for them ! The largest tree of the grove has
been cut down, and the stump is twenty-five feet in
diameter at the point where it was cut off, say six
feet from the ground, and thirty-three feet in diam
eter at the ground. The taper of the tree is most
rapid for the first six or eight feet Now, taking a
section of the tree above the point where it was cut
of, we find in a width of three inches, eighty layers ;
or s~upposing each layer to indicate the growth of a
year. we have for every three inches eighty years,
and for every foot three hundred and twenty consec-
utive layers. Taking the semi-diameter at the
ground, sixteen and a half feet, and multiplying it
by three hundred and twenty, the number of years
indicated by the layers in one foot, we have five
thousand two hundred and eighty as the grand result.
But here it is obvious at a glance, we have not made
allowance for two very considerable sources of error.
1st- The same layers distributed through sixteen and
a half feet, the semi-diameter of the tree at its base
must be much thicker than the same layers six feet
above the ground, where the same number of layers
is compressed within twelve and a half feet, the semi
diameter Of the tree at that point. Twelve and a
half feet will give us only four thousand layers or
years.
I'd. We have not as yet taken into our account that
the eighty layers we have in hand are from near the
outside of the tree, where the layers being spread
over a much larger surface are very thin, while as
we advance towards the heart of the tree, they con-
stantly increase in thickness. So our eighty LAYERS
to every three inches are not a fair sample of the
same layers lower down than the point from which
they are taken, NOS are they a fair sample Of the
thickness of any layers near the center. But as yet
we have not made allowance for still another fact
which cuts down our estimate more than a hundred
years. Of the twelve and a half feet. which is the
largest semi-diameter Of which one section could have
been a part, from six to nine inches must be cast out
Of the reckoning as bark. If, from the outer extrem-
ity Of the radius which we have measured, we cast of
six inches, we have deducted at least one hundred and
sixty years.
The true age of the largest tree can be learned by
actual count. if any one will be 80 patient as to prick
of and number the layers on the stump of which l
have spoken, and which is now the smooth floor of q
ballroom in Calaveras County, California. This
was done by DR.. Horace Bushnell of Hartford, Con-
~necticut, a short time before l visited those trees in
1856. He, as I have stated. found by actual count
of the layers that they were between sixteen and
seventeen hundfea years old; if indeed a. be suggests
we are not to make still further allowances, by sdp-
posing that in that peculiar climate. enjoying . dou-
BILE spring and summer. they may possibly make two
layers : year. Facts in such . case are better than
theories. and the Doctor's actual count i pextby Of
more eonadenee1han All the Fpckouine MA chipsz
an6 bections th6& hass ever 6eeu madeE
Hoess. With uneh61ko cons 1ns1
= fhs Noeais Reoced