Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1885-07-01
SOME FAMOUS BIGTRE


Here are the extremes of plant life,"
said botanist, holding a microscope
slide in one hand and the picture of a
great tree in the other. .'This is diatom,
one of the smallest vegetable organisms,
invisible to the naked eye, while this,''
flourishing the picture,.'.i the largest
tree as to height in the world. ~
Zone of the sequoias?''
"No," was the reply. ''Uncle Sam
has done pretty we'll with trees, but
when it comes to the height the British
Lion takes the belt; as the loftiest trees
are found in the Australian dominion.
This picture is one found by traveller
in the black range of Berwick, and it is
estimated at 500 feet from the ground
to the topmost branch. Think of it
moment" continued the speaker.
Give hundred feet means good deal.
1t would dwarf the Bartholdi statue;
Trinity would look like a telegraph
pole compared to it; the Brooklyn
bridge would be nowhere; Strasburg
Cathedral, the highest building on the
globe, would be fifty-four feet below
the birds nests on the top branches,
and if the giant was placed by the side
of the pyramid of Cheops, the leaves of
the eucalyptus would still be twenty
feet above it. That's the kind of trees
they have in Australia, and they are
undoubtedly the largest on the globe,
though it is claimed that tho California
specimens are more impressive from
their greater bulk. The gum trees, as
the Australian giants are called, are
a comparatively modern discovery, and
for long time it was impossible to ap-
proach them, but now roads are broken,
and travellers can ride directly to the
foot of several. One of the first known,
Kanni eucalyptus Eucalyptus colos-
sea) of b0tanists, was discovered in a
glen of the Warren River, western Aus
tralia. When found by party of RI
dcrs, it was PROSTATE upon the ground,
and four riders abreast entered the
trunk, that was estimated AT 400 feet
in length. Another species E. Amzgda-
lima, measured by Boyle in the gloomy
forest of Daudenong, was found to be
42O feet long, while another, now grow
ing on the Black Spur, ten miles from
Healesvillc, is 4S0 feet high. These
measurements, you see, are far ahead
of the California trees, one of the lar
gcst, that think is known as THE Father
of the Forest only measuring 435 feet,
and being 10 feet in circumference at
the base. The one called The Mother
of the Forest measures 800 in height.
Of hn nf
feet. When they felled the famous
Traveller in 1858, by the way, every
man that had hand in it ought to
have been sent to Dry Tortugas, it took
five or six men nearly month to bring
it to the ground, and they had all kinds
of tools to work with, pump augurs,
wedges, and everything you could
think of.
For a good many years the trees
were subjected to all kinds of i'll
dignitics, and I have list of over
thirty names of so-called civilized
human beings that copied from tho
bark where they had been carved.
Nearly everybody feels called upon to
do this; but the rest, who have no
knife or are too lazy, have contented
themselves with building fires around
the roots. Why" continued the cx-
cited botanist, upon my word l would
as soon think of carving my name on
my great-grandfather's back, or burn
ing my grandmother at the stake, as
harming these trees.
| "Most all the California trees grow
in limited area, embracing about 24O
miles, and in all about 200 big trees
have been discovered, though in other
parts of the Sierra Nevadas there may
be many more that will be discovered
when the country is opened up
"Can the age of these large trees be
determined?' asked the writer.
mot to certainty" was the reply.
'In those extremely old fellows the
lines are not easily determined, but, if
you want guess, should say that,
when King David was fourishing, the
seeds of these giants were sprouting.
In one that l have examined, two
thousand annual rings could easily be
counted, but around the so-called
heart of the tree they multiplied SO
rapidly that it was impossible to count
them; but it was very evident that
some of the trees are much older than
the earth in which they grew,
that is, presupposing that we 90 by
Biblical time. In short, the trees may
be all the way from two to ten thousand
years old. That this is not a wild
statement you can see by taking the
case of the great tree known as the
Dragon s blood. of the Canary Islands.
Some one had the curiosity to hunt up
the history of it, and found that
descriptions of it, written several
hundred years ago, agreed exactly
with those of to-day; so that say in
three hundred years the tree has not
changed at all in general appearance.
The legends of the natives say that the
tree was worshipped by the original
inhabitants. In the fifteenth century
the Roman Catholic priest stationed
there, used its hollow, or partly hollow,
trunk as a room in which to say mass,
and the ruins of the altar can be seen
to-day. It was discovered, or revealed
| to science, 80 to speak, IN the days
when the father of Columbus was a
child, or about 1902, and since then has
not changed in the slightest. When
Humboldt visited it in 1899 he still
found it forty-tve feet in circumference,
and so it stands to-day, hale and
hearty, just as it was 483 years ago,
when first seen by, European, and
how long before that it had been grow
ing no one knows.
Europe is not behind in the matter OF
large trees, although they are not,
perhaps, so well known. Near Mount
Etna there is chestnut tree that is
known as the tree of thousand horses,
from the fact that it has given shelter
to many of these animals at once, the
occasion being during the visit of
Jeanne of Aragon from Spain to
Naples. It seems that she stopped at
Sicily, and, with a train of courtiers
representing all the nobility of Catania,
visited Etna, and while there was
caught in a passing shower during
which the branches Of the great tree
l l<y l. =