Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1880-06-14
oeean-blasts and by condition of climate

from severe changes OF weather. Ger
tain it is that all this group has such
shelter and warmth. Certain 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 hundred miles to the south
being in the same line of climate condi-
tion, and the groups that cluster around
this center, known by different names
as Calaveras, Tuolumne, Fresno, and
Mariposa-but all in one center and of
short radius.
We leave this majestic Valhalla,
where sylvan gods of Greece reign in
sile.t dignity, greeting the tiny man
7 with calm content as he comes and
stares and chatters and goes-goes in
his brief life to the dust whence he
arose; one hundred of his generations
only comprising the present age of the
young Sequoia. Even mans base at
tempt to destroy them has proved lnef-
fectual. He has kindled fire in near
ly every trunk, and blackened all of
them with his contemplate efforts to
lay them low. Yet the fire refuses to
do the ignoble Office, and they seem al
most as impervious to fame as to time.
Long may they reign, and welcome
many coming generations to their calm
abodes.-One finds it hard to realize
that Homer lived when they were
young; that. Exodus occurred and
Joshua fought, perhaps Sodom went up
in flames when the Grizzly Giant was
rejoicing in its youth that it was a
thousand years from its birth before
Julius Caesar and the Greater than all
began to be; that all profane, all brief
history is included in their brief lives
for Bunsen tells US history began with
the march of Moses out of Egypt
And harder still is it to fancy that these
trees, that started almost with the Flood
may live to the time of the Fire; that
only the final confagraton can consume
their strength and lay them low. Per-
haps the powerlessness of these man
kindled fires to burn may suggest that
they are to remain as witnesses of the
Deluge to the divinely-kindled confa-
grafton.
Is it surprising that the Italian should
say these are greater curiosities than the
Yosemite Is not life that ceases not,
that flows steadily from age to age, that
In old age of thirty centuries is still fat
and flourishing, that brings forth its
fruit in its season and its leaf never
withers-is not this grander than ra-
vine opened in a pile of mountains {?
Nay, the last also teaches the forces of
small things. A trickling brook cuts a
valley three thousand feet deep out of
rock. A tiny stream of sap lifts up a
stalk three hundred feet in the air.
Each is mighty: but He who orders
each and empowers each is the only
Force. Thou only art Mighty; Thou
alone art Almighty.
Man resumes his place at the head of
these creations, short and feeble as is
his day; for he alone can see and say
his highest truth. He, too, can say !;
l may perish, and thou endurest; yet l
shall live when thou for eternities art
gone-In Him in whom now l live
shall live forever.
So, comforting myself with these
tbo'ts, l bid long farewell to the Two
Sights of California.-N. 7. Independ-
ent.