The Nevada Democrat., 1861-02-28
It. Starr King AZ the RIg Trees.

The following is an extract from letter
of I. Starr King to the Boston Transcript
The afternoon hours we passed in the
Mariposa grove were strangely short. One
needs long summer day for the proper
study even of dozen of the chief Senators
In the group. What is an afternoon among
six hundredf | lay for half an hour alone
at the root of the most colossal bole-my
companions out of sight and hearlng-and
watched the golden sunshine mounting the
amber trunk, and at last leaving a hundred
feet of il in shadow to food its mighty
boughs and locks with tender lustre. What
silence aud what mystery How many
centuries Of summers has such evening
splendor FURNISHED thus the summit of the
completed shaft? How long since the qnick-
ening sunbeam fell upon the first spear of
green in which the prophecy of the superb
obelisk was enfoldedG Why cannot the dull
column now be con6dentiali There comes
a breath OF wind, cooled by the snow on
higher swels of the Sierras. which can be
seen from the western edge Of the grove;.-
why will not the old patriarch take advan-
tage of that ripple through his leaves and
whisper to me bis age? Are you as old as
Noah? Do you span the centuries ne
far as Moses2 Can you remember the
time Of Solomon Were you planted
before the seed of Rome took root in Italy?
AT any rate, tell me whether or not your
birth belongs TO the Christian centuries:
whether we must write ''B. c." or IA. D.n
against your infancy. promised the stall
wart greybeard that / would tell nobody.
or at most only the Transcript, If he would
Just drop into my ear the hour Of his nativ-
ity. Perhaps he would have told me. ifmv
party had not returned to disturb the con
dltlons OF communication. Possibly he
would have said that his memory was
treacherous, and that must ask the scien.
tifc men.
have asked them and they differ. One
calculation led Mr.. Greeley TO believe that
the Oldest OF these trees were of substantial
size when David danced before the Ark.
when Thesus ruled in Athens, when Kneas
fled from the burning wreck of Troy. In
an English Journal they were estimated bv
a distinguished botanist at three thousand
years. DR.. Bigelow, by counting the rings
in n section OF the trunk of one OF the lar.
gest, which had been felled, aud committing
from that, reduced these pretentions mate
rally. lie made 1t about 1900 years ole, -
a tender contemporary of Cicero and julius
Cesar. But since then, merciless savan,
Dr. Torrey, the botanist, declares that he
has counted every ring on the tree that
was cut down, and bis figures have felled q
vast pile of our poetry. Why must there
be scientific men, who delight In bothering
theoloRians, and in erecting their cheuaur de
Jri'e in the path of all galloping romance?
lie makes our tree about l,l00 years old.
II this calculation be Trustworthy, the col
ulmn at whose root | sat took its FIRST
druught of sunshine in the time Of Charlie
magne. II is three hundred years older
than The Norman Conquest and the great
Hildebrand. II was a giant 10 the time of
the first Crusade. And II antedates the foun.
datiOn stone Of the oldest Gothic spire of
Europe. A genial evening of life 10 the
Methuselahs Of the wilderness, who were
babies OF century thousand years ago.