Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1915-10-06

kEssE3z HE SeQuOla National park is
twenty-four years old, yet,
east of the Rockies, it is
III scarcely known. Yellowstone
and Yosemite are the only
two names which the enormous ma
jority Of fasteners think of when ma
tional parks are mentioned. Never
theless, Sequoia is, perhaps, in point
of average beauty, the superior of all.
It was dear to the heart of John
Muir, father of National parks, and
Chief Geographer R. B. Marshall,
who knows them all as no other nan
knows them, having surveyed or ira
versed them in person, has declared
in print that it possesses beauty as
great as all others combined.
1t is par excellence the camping-out
park, as some day will be discovered.
Perhaps the most potent reason for
its lack of celebrity is that this is the
Big Tree park, and the general public
associates the Big Trees of California
with Yosemite. The Mariposa grove,
within easy reach of the Yosemite
valley, contains several enormous Sc
quota trees. In fact the Yosemite Ma
tional park contains three groves of
these giants, the two others being. the
MERGED and Tuolumne groves, which
lie within easy reach to the north
west.
The Sequoia National park, how
ever, which lies many miles south of
Yosemite, was created to preserve,
for the use and pleasure of the people
of the United States, by far the great
est groves of the Oldest, the biggest,
and the most remarkable trees living
in this world. They number 1885, 900.
OF these, 10000 exceed 10 feet in
diameter. The General Sherman tree,
most celebrated of all, is 279.9 feet
high with a diameter of 36.5 feet. The
Abraham Lincoln tree is 270 feet high
with a diameter of 81 feet. The Will
liam Mckinley tree is POI feet high
with diameter of % feet.
Of Mighty Dimensions.
The General Grant National park is
usually mentioned with Sequoia be-
cause, though separated by six miles
of mountain and forest, the two are
practically the same national park. 1t
contains only 1885 acres and was
created only for the protection of the
General Grant tree, monster Sc
quota 264 feet high and S5 feet in
diameter. But General Grant shares
his domain with distinguished neigh
boTs, notably the George Washington
tree, which is only nine feet less in
height and six feet less in diameter.
The sequoias are the Oldest living
things in this world. "They are the
connecting link" writes Ellswor h
Huntington, between the ancient
East and the modern West.
Three thousand fence posts, sufi-
Cient 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
it's huge carcass. Six hundred and
fifty thousand shingles. enough to
cover the roofs of 20 or so houses,
formed the second item of its prod
uct. Finally there still remained
hundreds of cords of fiTewood which
no one could use because of the pro-
hibitive 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 won
derfuIly enduring, 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 III its early youth; one that
has rounded out 1000 summers and
winters is only in full maturity; and
ola age. the three score years and ten
OF the sequoias. does not come for II
or Is centuries.
Growing Before Exodus.
"How old the oldest trees may be
is not yet certain, put nave counted
the rings OF 10 that were over 1000
years If age, of three that were over
5000, ana 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 a sturdy
saplng, with stir, priekly foliage like
that OF a cedar, but far more COM
pressed. 1t was doubtless a grace
FIJI, Sharply conic2l tree, 20 or 80 feet
high, with dense, horizontal branches,