Semi-weekly herald., 1909-12-06


needle carpeted earth with arms en-
twined 100 feet or more above its sur
face.
THE Oldest of these giants are the
big trees" continued Mr.. Shoup, the
sequoias, which John Muir, by count.
ing the concentric rings of stump
has proved to have attained an age
of over 1000 years, and the larger of
which. DIR. David Starr Jordan says
may very well have attained an age
of 1000 or 5000 years. A very inter
esting and curious experiment resulted
from discussion in connection with
the annular rings of "A big tree stump
Each year a tree adds "A layer TO It's
trunk, and the dividing line De,~te'
that and the preceding layer is indi-
Gated by a mark forming a ring about
the center of the tree
In studying these rings Supervisor
Frye OF the Sequoia national park OBJ
served that the intervening spaces
were of irregular sizes, indicating that
in some years the trees had made
greater growth than in others. Be
tween a local scientist and himself a
momentous discussion arose. Did the
lean rings indicate years of great
SHOWS and high waters and cold
rings indicate low waters, scant SHOWS
and mild weather, or vice versa? Frye
contended that the years of little
growth were the ones of great rainfall
and snowfall, with cold weather, be
cause the growing season would be
corresponding short for these big
trees, which in no place are found be
low 1000 feet altitude. thence upward
to 5000 feet, and which, in the Sc,
quota park, are probably all above the
4.50O-foot line. An ingenious solution
was reached; the rings were numbered
backward from the year of the discus
sion of some tIfty years and given a
relative size on a scale. The scale
was sent TO the weather bureau in
San Francisco and checked off by the
records AS far back as the weather
bureaus records go they correspond
exactly with the history recorded by
the big trees. The cold and rainy
years were the years Of little growth;
the dry, warm years the years of
larger growth.
'Thereupon Supervisor Frye and his
friends proceeded to construct a ST.
ezra weather record back for n thou
sand years or so. determining some
very unusual and remarkable things
About hundreds years ago there was
a series of very cold years-a dozen
or more in which the Sierra apparent.
ty hardly escaped from its blanket of
snow even in its lower reaches; and
now the Oldest inhabitants are asking
will such time come again."
"In the Sequoia park. and indeed
| in all the High Sierra below timber
line" said Mr.. Shoup, "are beautiful
| little meadows, thousands in the ag-
/ - NSotVf Nhitu dit SDuIte VI great
| delight to the traveller and even more
so to his pack and riding animals de.
pendent upon them for food. These
meadows were originally little lakes
little ravines damned by some fallen
big tree on the cup-like hollow ground
cut out by glacier, damned possibly
by what the biologists call talus
1 which Is mass of rocky fragments
lying at the base of cliff, or a mo
raine, which is the accumulation OF
rock and debris along ,ne edge of q
glacier. There the streams of the
Sierra poured into them not only wa
ter, but earth, and 10. the rock basir
became encircled with a rim of vege
tation growing broader and broader
and finally absorbing the lake mucl
as sponge might do, and creatins
out of 1t a thing of marvellous summer
beauty with its fifteen or more kind,
OF succulent green grasses, and II.
wild gardens of lilies, veratrum. lark
spur, columbines. lupines, valerian, tn
lips, CELIA, geranium, daisies, sunflow
ers, saxifrage. azaleas and hundreds o
other flowers that make gay and bril-
/, liant the Sierra summer"
|