The Coolidge examiner., 1935-01-11

Among the Big Trees il
Prepared by National Geographic Society.
Washington. II. C.-WNU Service.
I"HINK Of an ant crawling on
the ground through a vast
Il cornneld. looking up at the
tall stalks.
To the ant the cornstalks are as
high as the California Big Trees
are to n man gazing at their dis
tant tops.
But IL is their astonishing age,
as well as their size and beauty,
which fills the soul of puny man
with awe and reverence for the Gre
ator.
Big Trees, stout and healthy TO-
day. were centuries old when Christ
was born. Men call them "the old
est living things" So nearly indie
structIble are they that some naked,
fire-scorched trunks still stand.
though dead before America was
discovered; others, which fell Gen.
turtles ago. remain sound and solid
inside Such vitality has the Sc
quota that when felled its branches
do not wlther for years. One giant
crashed In 1926. In 1881 its foliage
was fresh and green.
They link us with the past. Their
sequoia forbears grew here when
the world was younger, when rep
/ tiles grew TO enormous size. Such
mammoths as the dinosaur, unable
to adjust themselves to climatic and
other changes. faded from the
earth; but the sequoia family en-
/ dured and saw the rise Of the man.
mails. Yet today. when you walk
beneath these towering tree giants,
you feel that the deer and the squIr-
rel hardly fit into n scene set for
the brontosaurus and the ptero-
/ dactyl.
Big Trees and Redwoods Differ.
Some people confuse Callfornia's
Redwoods with Its so-called "Big
Trees" Both are big" and both
are OF the genus Sequola; both
have pink or red wood and both
are trees OF the largest size. But
they are two species. distinct In
habitat. in bark. foliage and In re-
production.
The Coast Redwood, or Sequoia
sempervirens, is found only near
the coast or within the belt of sea
fogs, and extends from southern
Oregon down to Monterey county.
In California.
The larger species Of the Cali
fornIa Big Tree, or Sequoia gigan-
tea. is confined to the western slopes
OF the Sierra Nevada. between 1000
and $500 feet elevation, from
Placer county, in the north, to Tu-
lare county. In the south. and is
much more abundant In the south
than In the north.
The Coast Redwood forms an al
most continuous forest in which 1t
is the dominant stand; the Big
Trees grow In scattered groves, II
In all, interspersed among the heav-
Ter stands OF white fir, sugar pine,
and other trees.
Survived Ice and Fire.
Ages before man came to chop
these trees for his use, Ice and fire
were fierce foes. Again and
again moving glaciers moved them
down-glacIers whose icy fingers
stretched down mountain canyons
to freeze all animal and plant life.
Whether in warm and sheltered
spots a few trees remained, or
whether only seeds survived, can
probably never be known; but slow
u the cold hands relaxed and the
forests returned. The fact that
/ the Big Trees are more abundant
and larger In the southern part OF
their range indicates that there the
effects OF the glacier were less Sc
we're.
With the passing Of the Age of
Ice, the struggles Of the sequoias
had only begun. Fires followed the
ordeal of ice. The abundant rains
ceased, and long. dry summers
rendered the forests tinderlike.
ready to be ignited by lightning
or by brands tossed by Indians
to drive out game or clear land for
forage.
There Is scarcely a mature Sc
uuoia that does not show the effects
of at least one fire. Every 20 or
30 years flames swept through the
forest, sometimes licking hungrily,
but with little effect, at the thick,
asbestos-like bark; again, where a
litter of boughs and fallen logs was
piled up against a Big Tree. the fire
burned fercely enough to penetrate
/ the outer cover and into the heart.
That Is why the great black cav
erns In the living sequoias are al
most always found on the upper
side of those standing on a slope.
Careful inspection of Big Tree,
even one with an unbroken front
Of new bark, usually shows unmis-
taxable traces Of many fires. Often
an arrow-shaped scar ruus from the