The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1864-11-29
The Biz Trees of California

found them situated in slight depression
between two ranges of hills, but $500 feet q
bove the plains below. Like Niagara, the frs
view is liable to disappoint you.-The trees DE-
not seem as large or as tall as you would ex.
pect from the descriptions you have read. But
the actual measurement corrects your first i'm
preston. Though l do not think the trees
are as much taller than their humber neigh.
bors as they are larger. For when they rise
above the level of the tops they are expos
ed to the full force of mountain storms. Some
of the trunks at the top are as bare as "liberty
poles" and most of the others send out strong
lateral branches instead of maintaining the
gradual and tapering symmetry of the lower
portions of the trunk. Nevertheless these lof-
ty monarchs of the forest do stand consldera-
bly, above the altitude of the tallest pines, and
one gets his only adequate impression OF their
length by measuring those that nave fallen.
So also of their size. Standing inside, ten rods
| from the base of the 'Father OF the Forest" a
hollow and fallen tree, could not reach to the
top of it; and still beyond that was q knot
hole out of which visitors ascend by step
ladder. "The horseback ride" which was
through the hollow trunk of another fallen
tree, is now obstructed by the breaking in of
the trunk at one point by the falling across 1t,
yet walked through the hollow and came
out about IL rods from the base! Nine full
sized men have stood abreast, cross. wise, on
the fallen trunk of the Hercules" Standing
beside one fallen tree with stick seven feet
long, could not reach to the top by four feet,
and yet the bark, which is from eleven to
twenty-eight inches thick, had been peeled of
from the tree.
The names of the trees are curious med
ley, Hercules" "Sir John Franklin,n and
"Gen. Scott" are near neighbors, "The Old
Dominion | noticed, was not very straight,
shaky at the top and badly burnt about the
roots; while the Empire Staten was straight
and healthy and green to the topmost twig !
"Ihe Sisters, "The Graces," and "The Trini-
ty," are groups, and look as If they might have
been, at first, shoots from the roots OF some
fallen ancestor. "The Siamese Twins" are
really one tree, very large for twenty feet from
the ground, then separating into two stalwart
and equal branches.
I found about TWENTY-FIVE trees fallen. and
In all stages of decay as if they had been
brought down bynatural causes through the
progress Of the last 200 years. One fell in
1850 and the last in 1862. Twelve of the fal-
len trees are of the largest size, some of them
larger than any that are now standing.
think every visitor ought to enter his pro-
test against two acts Of Vandalism which have
been perpetrated on these wonders of the for
est. The largest treestanding when they were
discovered. has been bored down-brred say,
for was too large to be cut; and five men
were twenty-five days boring through and
through the hole of this tree with pump au-
gurs before it fell. On the fallen trunk, cut
away on the top, was a ten-pin alley, and the
stump, seven feet above the ground, is from
twenty five to twenty seven feet across. On
this stump house is built.
The "Mother of the Forest" has been strip
ped of her covering to the height of 116 feet.
that some one might exhibit it at the East at
twenty-five cents sight, But though this
was done seven years ago, so tenacious is she
OF life that one green limb yet remains among
her many branches.
Many speculations have been indulged as
to the age of these trees. Some have thought
that they antedate the Flood, I also venture
an estimate. We found, counting the circles
in the grain from the heart of the tree bored
down, that it took thirty-six years to make a
foot in diameter. Estimating the diameter at
twenty-five feet would make the tree but 900
years old. Wecounted again, not exactly at
the heart, but sixty feet from the stnmp, and
the estimate was. forty y-eight years to the foot,
which would make the tree but 1900 years old.
conclude, then, that none ofthese tress stand
ing or fallen are over 1900 years old. But
even then how old they are! Green and firm,
msjestic and beautiful they stand before you,
many Of them, without symptom of decay,
and yet 1900 or 1900 years oldl What changes
have occurred, what empires have risen and
fallen since they sprung from the bosom OF
the mother earth Had they tongues what tales
could they tell!-Reu. DR.. Kendall in N. Y.
EUGngelist.