The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-05-15

grows thinly on these short and scraggy
branches. Yet this green, curly hair,
browning the light-brown stalk, gives a
not uncomely aspect. 1t seems more
fitting than wide-spreading arms and
large leaves. Every thing is made
tributary to tallness and size of the tree
itself. These slight appurtenances
only intensity the extraordinary quail
tiles.
Perhaps some sneering critic might
say it was the natural law-that mere
bigness can produce nothing great.
Short boughs and thin leaves show how
bulk runs to bulk alone. But even then
"all is well and wisely putt Bulk is
its own reward. 1t is itself sufficient
cause for being. The Sentinels are sat-
isfactory as sentinels. But the males
tics are still to come. Whirl round the
corner in whose angle they stand, and
in few rods you stand before the chief
of the clan. Get out of the wagon, and
reverently pace around the mighty mass
of living wood. 1t takes forty PAGES to
walk around it. Its cavernous sides,
blackened by fires that have been
kindled in them, ope their ponderous
jaws twenty and thirty feet above you,
twenty and thirty feet within the outer
bark. Its lowest measure is hundred
feet, while its Understanding roots, that
come out from the sides like the paws of
lion from his legs, if included in the
measurement, would make it cover a
hundred and twenty if not hundred
and fifty feet.
This tree is not as tall as some of its
fellows. 1t has devoted itself to bulk.
1t hardly reaches three hundred feet. 1t
is called the Grizzly Giant and is the
master of the forest. Opposite lies its
fellow, prone. A set of steps-a dozen
or twenty of them-leads you to the
upper side of the monster, and you
promenade on deck longer than that
of an Atlantic steamer, if it had a
deck that traversed its whole length.
But these are wonders, and they
are cheap. A few rods further, and
we meet double tree, shooting up
from one base the matter of hundred
feet, and then departing-a couple of
Bunker Hill monuments perched on
trunk a hundred feet high and bigger
round than it is at its base. The trees
are not so numerous as to distract.
They are all easily noticeable. Tho
other trees gather about them in due
humility plenty of servants for the few
forest lords. May they have large
progeny. The young Sequoia, even to
saplings foot high, are numerous.
They show that, if let alone three thou
sand years, there may be other giants
on the earth of the same blood as these.
We pass through this grove, wind up
a hill another mile or two, and enter a
still larger forest of larger trees.
Though no one here surpasses the Griz-
Fly Giant, many here surpass the most
there. They are also a more comely
group. They stand forth in their light
brown apparel, twenty and thirty feet in
diameter, tall, graceful, marvellous.
At the terminus of the trip the chief
surprise occurred. George turns his
four horses and wagon, containing
eight persons, straight to one of the
trees. The road runs neither to the one
side nor the other. 1t is Longfellow's
Western road, which, opening wide and
handsome, turns into a squirrel-path
and runs up a tree. But this SQUIRREL
path is still wide enough to hold horses
and wagon, and, instead of running up
a tree, runs through it. The trunk is
sawn high and wide, so that we all are
gathered within it-four horses and
long wagon-and still there's room for
more.
No one event so impresses the visitor.
Yet, when you come to figures, it does
not surprise you. A double team and
carriage is not thirty feet Long, This
tree is thirty feet through. The i'm
mense cut has not destroyed its vitality
1t grows green above and around the
deep cut, and looks likely to live and
grow another three thousand years.
Up another trunk you look through
an orifice in the top-a telescope by the
side of which Ross's is a microscope.
Through another, prone, you walk for
several hundred feet, the roof as high as
that of country church. In another,
called Haverford, named from that col.
lege, group of hundred collegians
could easily gather and sing their widest
bacchanals, without disturbing its Sc
renity.
There are several of these forests: but
nearly all within compass of hun
dred miles. heard Gen. Rosencranz
discourse very lntellgently and agreea-
bly, on their origin. He declared they
had attained their immense age and size
by virtue of their position-sheltered by
higher hills from ocean blasts and by
conditions of climate from severe change
of weather. Certain it is that this group
has such shelter and warmth. Certain,
also, it is that the redwood of the Coast
Range, of which it is the kin, does not
attain to such proportions. Certain it
is also, that they are not found out of this
warm and protected region, those that
appear a hundred miles to the south be-
ing in the same line of climate and con-
dition, and the groups that cluster
around this center, known by different
Manassas Calaveras, Tuolumne, Fresno,
and Mariposa-but all in one center
and of short radius.-The Late BtShop
gilbert HaUen, IN N. Y. Independent.