Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1861-02-21
THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA.

We find in late number of the Boston
Transcript the most graphic account yet
written Of the grove of mighty trees at
Mariposa, California. 1t is from the pen
oft the Rev. Thomas Star King We quote
the most striking passages:
The flowers are plenteous along all the
steadily rising trail. Here and there we
must pause before one of the seductive sugar
pines, which looks so full of melody that it
seems as if the first breeze that brushes ii
would make it break forth into Mozartish
song What if we should meet grizzly
on fowery bank under one of the graceful
sugar pines? While we were discussing
this possibility, we came upon fresh traces
Of q very,large ones IL was eager tosget {
glimpse of him, but the majorityof the com
pany prayed that they might not see one
of the shaggy monsters, and their prayer
was answered.
There are two large groves of the NAM
moth trees in California. The one which
is usually visited is in Calaveras county
It contains hardly third as many trees as
the Mariposa cluster which we were in search
of in this letter, but is much more easy of
access. It covers about as much space as
the Common, and good carriage road leads
to the heart of it. At the portal of the
grove stand pair Of sentinels, twenty-five
feet apart, which are sixty feet in circum-
ference and three hundred feet high. They
are we'll named the 1.-TWO Guardsmen. >
What pity, for Dumas sake, that there is
not one more? Passing these warders, you
drive up to hotel, and find the grounds
trimmed up and the trees named and label
led for guests. Some of the tables are of
gilt letters on marble, we are told, and are
tastefully inlaid in the bark from six to
twenty feet above the ground. The Her
cules" in this group is ninety feet in
circumference. The California, seventy
three feet in circuit, shoots up straight as
an arrow three hundred and ten feet
"Uncle Toms CABIN is tree which has
been burnt out it is eighty-three feet in
circumference, and will lodge twenty per-
sons. The Mother of the Forest" is three
hundred and twenty-seven feet high, and
nearly eighty feet in girth.
One of these Calaveras trees, three hun
dred feet high, was cut down few years
ago, eight feet from the ground. Part of
the trunk is used as bowling alley, and
the stump, twenty-five feet in diameter,
covered with canopy of green boughs, is
now dancing saloon. To cut it down.
pump augers we're used from either side,
until the tree was completely severed from
the base. But so nicely poised was it that
it would not fall. Only by driving in large
wedges with immense battering raws, could
its equilibrium be disturbed sufficiently to
make it top-heavy. Five men were at work
twenty-five days in this wretched drudgery
of destruction.
The Moriposa grove stands as the Creator
has fashioned it, unprofaned except by fire,
which long before the advent of Saxon white
men, had charred the base of the large por-
ton of the stalwart trees. We rode on for
an hour, climbing all the time, till we reach
ed forest planted five thousand feet above
the sea. This, in New England, is the
height of Mt Madison, where not shrub
can grow.
Riding on few rods, through ordinary
evergreens with dark stems, we at last catch
a glimpse of strange color in the forest.
It is tree in the distance, of light CHINA
mon hue. We ride nearer and nearer, see
ing others of the same complexion starting
out in the most impressive contrast with the
sombre columns of the wilderness. We are
now in the grove of the Titans. The bark
has rig ght loonine effect on the eye. We
single out one of them for first acquain-
tance, and soon dismount at its root.
must confess that my own feelings, as
I first scanned it, and let the eye roam up
its tawny pillar, was of intense disappoint-
ncnt. But then I said to myself this is cne
of the sirinlinrs IF tho An,k brood onlv