The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1872-03-07

i last while the echristening party is in
the grove, and are never heard of af-
forwards, though the guides promise
everyone that the names shall be reg
istered, and recorded, and perpetuated.
| A few names, like 81 Iincoln," "Grant"
and .sSherman, stick to the giants, and
are remember But, after all, how
exduisitely ridiculous it is to be tack
| ing to these hoary old survivors of
the storms and tempests of twenty
centuries-these grand old kings of
| the woods who counted their years by
| the centuries when Columbus first set
sail from Spain, and were in the green
and vigor of youth when the Star led
the Chaldean sages to the infant Say
| ior's cradle-how grandly absurd it
seems to be taeking to these silent old
witnesses of the passage of two thou
sand years the names of men who
| have seen little more than half CEN
tury, and whose greatest achievements
are all embracediin the short span of
a score of years. And if we might
imagine them endowed with sense
and memory, with what infinite con-
tempt they must look down upon
these puny efforts to press them into
the service of some hero of the hour.
to help celebrate the greatness, trans
NIT the name, of some statesman or
warrior, whose transcient fame gem
Grafton may, perhaps, more than
measure! what petty triaing it must
seem to these Methuselahs of the for
est, who, standing there in their lone
illness, for thousand years have
watched the coming and going of the
sun have seen moons wax and wane
have witnessed the silent, solemn
marches of the stars beheld new stars
come out and old ones flash and die;
seen seasons come and go; now listen
ing with leaves astir, and rustiing to
the whispered conferences of Eblus,
and now bending their gnarled and
tangled tops to the sharp rebuking
blasts of the north wind, and yet tri-
umph over Time and Tempest, look
ing down upon the long and dim pro-
cessions of the ages as they pass.
None of US were so profoundly
impressed at first with the great. size
of the trees as we had expected to be,
and that, / presume was partly be-
cause of. our fatigue from the long
ride, and partly because we had come
to to Big Trees by such easy stages,
through forests of pine trees of inn
mense height and girtb. 1t was not
until we had ridden around several of
the largest, and sitting upright on our
horses had ridden through the hollow
burnt-out trunk of one, a section of
which lay lengthwise in trail, and had
come down on the side of the sFallen
Monarch" which lay ON the ground
where it fell that their true meaning
dawned upon US and we realized their
tremendous size. fabri.
" By the side of the Fallen Monarch
we took our lunch and baited our
horses.
" Sitting there by the side of this
prone Monarch, and measuring its di-
ameter with my eye, or climbing up
twenty or thirty feet, upon its side
comparing it in my mind with the
largest trees l had ever seen elsewhere
Imagining it stretched out in some
city street, filling all the carriage way
and reaching up to the second story
windows-the idea of its vastness
took full possession of me, and for
the first time grasped its greatness.
And even then l do not think the
idea of its size and measurement so
overwhelmed me as did the thought
of its vast age and the centuries it had
looked down upon. The great space
it had filled was nothing to the ages
it had bridged over. No inanimate
monument of mans work was here
no unwrapping of dead Pharoahs from
the mummy-cioths of the embalmers;
but here had been life and growth and
increase, and running out of roots and
spreading forth of branches, and bud
ding leaves and flowing sap, and all
the process of nature with poise and
swing, from winters sleep, to sum-
mer's waking, and the noiseless regis
tering of the years and centuries in
figures that could not be mistaken
from the heart of the sapling out to
the rind of bark that hugged its age.
And though one looks with profound
wonder at the vast size of these mon
sters, it is, after all, the suggestions
they give of their far reach backward
into time that most impresses the be-
holder. -
"The rings in the trunk indicate ages
varying from a few years to upwards
of two thousand. Those about ten
feet in diameter are in the neighbor-
hood of 600 years old. Most of the
larger ones have been damaged more
or less by fire. One of them has been
entirely followed out, SO that our
whole party of twelve rode in upon
our horses and stood together in the
capity. The tree grows on, and is as
green at the top as any of them, not
withstanding the hollowness of the
trunk. .s.-.-..,.
We spent three or four hours in the
two groves, upper and lower-and
just in the edge of the Sabbath twi-
light, singing in full chorus, '.tPraise
passed bass o ont ~nU amopa az the eIs nnbewn nVI coI-
umns and sturdy pillars, the grained
and depths, and vistas and recesses.
the grandeur and solitude of these
noblest of Coos first temples" and
took our Journey toward the valley"
A divorce case with soIna nauu fen.