Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1915-11-23
OF MIGHTY DIMENSIONS.

OF MIGHTY DIMENSIONS.
The General Grant National Park is
usually mentioned with Sequoia because,
though separated by six miles of noun
tain aud forest, the two are practically
the same national park. 1t cont aims only
1850 acres and was created only for the
protection of the General Grant tee, a
monster sequoia 264 feet high and
thirty.five feet in diameter. But General
Grant shares bis domain with distin.
guished neighbors, notably the George
Washington tree, which is only nine feet
less in height and six feet less in diane
ter.
The sequoias are the oldest living
Meeting link" writes Ellsworth Hunt
ington, "between the ancient East and
the modern West.
"Thres thousand fence posts, sufficient
to support a wire fence around 5000 or
5000 acres, have been made from one of
these giants, and that was only the first
step toward using its huge carcass. Six
hundred and fifty thousand shingles,
enough to cover the roofs of seventy or
eighty houses, formed the second item
of it's product. Finally there still re-
manned hundreds of cords of firewood
which no one could use because of the
prohibitive expense of hauling the wood
out of the mountains. The upper third
of the trunk and all the branches lie on
the ground where they fell, not visibly
rotting, for the wood is wonderfully en-
during, but simply waiting till some
foolish camper shall light devastating
fire.
"Huge as the sequoias are, their size
is scarcely so wonderful as their age. A
tree that has lived 500 years is still in it's
early youth; one that has rounded out
1000 summers and winters is only in full
maturity; and old age, the three score
years and ten of the sequoias, does not
come for seventeen or eighteen centuries.
GROWING BEFORE EXODUS.
chow old the oldest trees may be is
not yet certain, but have counted the
rings of seventy nine that were over 1000
years of age, of three that were over
5000, and OF one that was $3.50.
"In the days of the Trojan War and of
the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt
this oldest tree was sturdy sapling,
with stiff, prickly foliage like that of a
cedar, but far more compressed. 1t was
doubtless graceful, sharply conical tree,
twenty or thirty feet high, with dense,
horizontal branches, the lower ones of
which swept the ground. Like the
young trees of today, the ancient sequoia
and the clump of trees of similar age
which grew close to it must have been a
charming adornment Of the landscape.
By the time of Marathon the trees had
lost the hard, sharp lines of youth, and
were thoroughly mature. The lower
branches had disappeared, up to height
of hundred feet or more; the giant
trunks were disclosed as bare, reddish
columns covered with soft bark inches
or foot in thickness; the upper branches
hal acquired slightly dropping aspec' /;
and the spiny foliage, far removed from
the ground, had assumed graceful,
rounded appearance. Thon for centuries
through the days of Rome, the Dark
Ages, and all the period of the growth of
European civilization, the ancient giants
preserved the same appearance, strong
and solid, but with strangely attractive,
approachable quality"
The sequoias are found scattered all
over the park, which has an area of 16l,-
597 acres, but the greater trees are
gathered in thirteen groups Of many
acres each, where they grow close to-
gether.
The following is list Of few of the
principal trees, with their names, height,
and diameter:
Height and diameter Of principal trees.
GIANT FOREST GROVE.
General Sherman, height, 279.9 feet {;
diameter, 36.5 feet.
Abraham Lincoln, height, 27O feet;
diameter, 81 feet.
William Mckinley, height, POI feet {;
diameter, 2S feet.
MUIR GROVE.
Dalton, height, 292 feet; diameter, 27
feet.
GARFIELD GROVE.
California, height, 26O feet; diameter
80 feet.
GENERAL GRANT GROVE.
General Grant, height, 264 feet; diam
eter, 35 feet.
George Washington, height, 255 feet;
diameter go feet.
The General Sherman tree was dis
covered by James Wolverton, a hunter
and trapper, on August !, 1870, at which
time he named the tree in honor of Gen
eral Sherman, under whom he had served
during the war. The dimensions of this
tree are as follows:
Dimensions Of General Sherman tree.
Feet
Height. .......--........27ss
Base circumference. --.----...10 a 8
Base diameter. 32.7
IL 2