The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1869-03-06

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chop the tree entirely through twice.
After one hundred and fifty days inces-
saint labor, this was effected, and the
block of ten feet in length lay severed
from the pile. The next thing was to
transport such mass, and, by any
available means at hand it seemed as
impossible as to move the bill where it
grew 1t was finally bored through
the centre from the top, and the ends
where it was sawed through, still be-
ing in direct line with the main trunk
the earth was dug away from one side,
and fire built underneath, which was
kept generally burning for several
weeks. The auger hole made good
chimney, which was gradually en-
larged by the fire, until the men could
work inside with their axes. In this
manner it was excavated to within
about two feet of the surface, and then
carried to San Francisco, where it was
shipped on board the clipper ship
Messenger" sent to Boston, and sub
sequently taken to the Crystal Palace,
Sydenham, England.
1t is strange to reflect that when the
mighty pines of the Mariposa and Cal
averas groups-now the handicapped
monarchs of the California forests
were but in the spring time of their
growth, Moses was probably leading
the Jewish natives through the deserts
of Arabia, by "Horeb's flowing fount
and Sinai's awful thunders," to the
Promised Land, or, perhaps, was quiet
ly sleeping in his waterproof cradle
among the bulrushes of the Nile-lttle
dreaming that trees We're then growing
on another continent, that would live to
be cotemporary with the two hundreth
generation of his descendants, speeding
over the land, on the wings of steam at
the rate Of fifty miles an hour and send
ing their thoughts, in an instant, by a
flash oflightning, along strands of slen-
der wire, over the mountains and under
the seas of then unknown continent.
When the infant pines, now growing on
the slopes of Sierras, shall have reached
their full-grown stature of 400 feet, the
Napoleons, the Garabaldis, the John
Browns, and even the Grants and the
Shermans, Of our own time, will be al
most as nearly myths in history as the
Tamerlanes, the Sennacheribs, and the
ancient Pharaohs, who built the Pyra-
mids of Egypt Among the ashes and
the dust of hundred generations, your
name and mine, reader, will have long
CiDco tot n lly f.dod from, b,,p,o, ,,,o,,,o
ry-and not the slightest trace of our
existence will be left on earth, when
these trees have put on their lordly
crowns of a thousand years. But still
they will connect the present with the
future, as the aged giants, now in their
decline, connect us with the past and
the generations of the future, three
thousand years hence, will look back to
US as possessing a civilization as much
inferior to theirs, as we are accustomed
to consider that of the ancient Assvrian
and Egyptian empires inferior to our
own. In view of these startling and
suggestive facts, we can we'll afford to
pay a tribute Of homage and respect to
those patriarchs of the world before the
flood-the Washington Pines of Cali
fornia
Richardson, author of Beyond the
Mississippi" in abiding to these trees,
says -
The Mariposa Big Trees are thirty
miles from Yosemite Valley. Six hun
dred Of the mammoths are scattered
among the noble pines of 1890 acres.
Many of the pines are 200 feet high.
Elsewhere they would be kings of the
forest, but among these hoary giants
they become children They are the
oldest and most stupendous vegetable
productions existing upon the globe
Already twenty groves have been dis
covered in California. The Mariposa
is the largest and finest, though the
Calaveras, Fifty miles to the northward,
is better known.
The tops f the largest trees are bro
ken off, l. ing their average height
about $50 set. We saw one with
branch-noi fork but an honest lat
eral brancI:- tx feet in diameter, grow
ing from I he lem eighty feet above the
ground. Into the cavity burned into
the side Of al ther standing tree fifteen
of us rode :o.,ethcr Without crowd
ing, we all at upon our horses in that
black, novel chamber, though it occu-
pies less than half the thickness of the
trunk. Through a stem lying upon the
ground, fire has bored like an auger.
Our entire cavalcade, including all the
tall men, all the fat men and all the
ample skirts, rode through it from end
to end, like a railway train through tun-
mel. One enormous trunk which parts
near the ground into two tall, symmetric,
perfect stems, is christened the Faithful
Couple.
The pine cones are cylindrical and some
times nearly two feet long. Those of the
Big Trees are round and not larger than an
apple. Seedlings from them are growing
in every country Of Europe. They are n,l-
merous in English parks, where mania
prevails for coniferous trees. Two hun
bred are planted in our great Central Park,
and many more in the nurseries of Western
New York. They are thrifty and vigor-
Gus; how large they will become is an
interesting problem. The largest standing
tree is the Grizzly Giant. Its bark is
nearly TWO 1eet tnlck. IL IL were cut OF
smoothly, fifty horses could easily stand,
or sixteen couples dance upon the stump
If the trunk were followed to shell, it
would hold more freight than a man-of-war
OF an ocean steamer $50 feet fong.
There seems to be no convincing or even
plausible theory of their origin; | should
rather say of their preservation, for they
are children of a long-ago climactic era
The age of giants fingers on the entire
Pacific coast stupendous red woods are
everywhere numerous; and on the sum-
nit of the Sierras, almost mile above sea-
level, grow sugar pines ten or twelve feet
in diameter. But these monster Sequoias
are the worlds patriarchs. Some botan-
lists date their births far back of earliest
human history; none estimate their age
at less than eighteen hundred years.