St. Landry democrat., 1881-10-29
Telling the Sequoia Gigantea.

When the woodman pointed out the
tree he was about to fell. our party
looked about in vain for some place
where its three hundred feet of trunk
could stretch out without submitting to
the necessity forced upon the man in
the story, .'whose feet were too long,
and the bed was too short" 1t could
not be done without first clearing a
path for it, we all agreed, but the wood
man smiled a knowing, superior smile:
We looked again, when he pointed
down slender path, fern carpeted, but
clear OF trees, that we had named
PARK avenue"
'But can you direct the fall of that
mighty redwood SO that it will lie in
that path and not crush other trees in
its falI,' we asked, wonderingly. "Ihe
tree will fall between these two stakes,
without disturbing either Of Them the
woodman said, driving two stakes tif-
teen feet apart and one hundred and
fifty feet from the butt of the tree.
The woodman and his assistants framed
a scaffoldmg around the buttress OF the
stately pillar of Gods temple, upon
which they stood, raised ten or fifteen
feet above the ground. and together
sent their keen-edged axes into the
rough. spongy bark. In the shade of
that grand grove they looked like pig
mics, and their instruments of devasta-
ton like chldren's toys, yet in few
hours they would PROSTATE what nature
had taken thousand years to raise.
No ardent lover of art ever witnessed
the destruction of his most admired
marble, no heather ever saw his idols
shattered by invading Christian, with
more poignant grief than ours when
the woodman's ak first buried itself in
the patriarch of all our noble Sequoia
gigantea.
The ladies insisted upon returning to
camp, and said some unkind things
about the woodmen, and were savagely
severe upon the unreasonable railroad
contractor who had deprecated their
suggestion to run the track around the
tree instead of over its roots. How
ever, IS the tree was doomed whether
they pouted in their tents or not. their
grief subsidized sufficiently in an hour to
allow them to be taken to point where
the overthrow of the monarch could be
safely witnessed. We climbed up a
trail to hill on one Size of the tree,
but found the intervening branches too
closely woven to allow of more than
doubtful view. Ignoring the trail, we
descended. and, in view of the
handicap of skirts and ladies, your
correspondent did make a most
mastery descent. How a lady, who
in the city requires to be helped
in and out of a csrriage. can in the
country scramble through matted
underbrush, swing down by the hang
ing boughs, roll over fallen trees, slide
gracefully down bark chute, tumble,
jump, fall, and finally land at the bot
tom of a hill, cool and collected, though
flushed, is problem she will probably
never explain, if she can. When we
took our station, only little way from
the woodmen, we found that they had
finished the work their axes had to do
by cutting nearly half way through the
tree on the side toward which it was to
fall, and were then driving a long
double handled saw into tho tree on
the opposite side. Although the lower
portion of the tree still stood firm and
motionless, the graceful, lofty top was
already swaying, as though conscious
Of, and silently protesting against, its
fast approaching prostratIon. 1t was a
beautiful picture before us, stretched in
a frame OF circling forest. The fern
brakes hourishing in almost tropical
Insurance; trees fallen ages ago. some
blackened by fire, the decay Of others
hidden; the vivid green of the baby
sequoias.
A half score of our party scattered
about in their picturesque camp cos
tunes, and all were fecked with the light
quivering down through the interstices
of the leafy dome far above us, the
light which ''stole its colors from the
glow of Mars, the sky 8 deep azure, and
the oceans emerald" But suddenly
all eyes were directed toward the
doomed tree. Its protest was no long
er silent. A rafting report, as if rifle
volley had been fired, gave warning
that the woodman's work was nearly
done. 1t sounded like desperate an
guish cry, which changed again to a
helpless groan. We held our breaths.
The towering head no longer swayed
in slow, solemn protest, but moved
convulsively. Then another cry. The
woodman jumped from the scaffold.
Thin steel had entered the giant heart,
for a stream of its life blood spurted
out through the cruel cut. The tree
for moment stood motionless to its
ightest, furthest branch, then slowly
bowed its head, the whole trunk shud-
dering; then with an awful crunching,
crushing noise that filled the wood with
dismal echoes-wails of the dying mon
arch's mourning comrades-it plunged
forward. The very echoes were
drowned then. There was a terrific
crash of wrested limbs as ragged rent
was torn through the woven branches
of the trees. a whirling, shrieking rush