CHAPTER IX

The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks

The Big Tree (_Sequoia gigantea_) is Nature’s forest masterpiece, and,

so far as I know, the greatest of living things. It belongs to an

ancient stock, as its remains in old rocks show, and has a strange air

of other days about it, a thoroughbred look inherited from the long

ago—the auld lang syne of trees. Once the genus was common, and with

many species flourished in the now desolate Arctic regions, in the

interior of North America, and in Europe, but in long, eventful

wanderings from climate to climate only two species have survived the

hardships they had to encounter, the gigantea and sempervirens, the

former now restricted to the western slopes of the Sierra, the other to

the Coast Mountains, and both to California, excepting a few groves of

Redwood which extend into Oregon. The Pacific Coast in general is the

paradise of conifers. Here nearly all of them are giants, and display a

beauty and magnificence unknown elsewhere. The climate is mild, the

ground never freezes, and moisture and sunshine abound all the year.

Nevertheless it is not easy to account for the colossal size of the

Sequoias. The largest are about three hundred feet high and thirty feet

in diameter. Who of all the dwellers of the plains and prairies and

fertile home forests of round-headed oak and maple, hickory and elm,

ever dreamed that earth could bear such growths,—trees that the

familiar pines and firs seem to know nothing about, lonely, silent,

serene, with a physiognomy almost godlike; and so old, thousands of

them still living had already counted their years by tens of centuries

when Columbus set sail from Spain and were in the vigor of youth or

middle age when the star led the Chaldean sages to the infant Saviour’s

cradle! As far as man is concerned they are the same yesterday, to-day,

and forever, emblems of permanence.

No description can give any adequate idea of their singular majesty,

much less their beauty. Excepting the sugar-pine, most of their

neighbors with pointed tops seem to be forever shouting Excelsior,

while the Big Tree, though soaring above them all, seems satisfied, its

rounded head, poised lightly as a cloud, giving no impression of trying

to go higher. Only in youth does it show like other conifers a

heavenward yearning, keenly aspiring with a long quick-growing top.

Indeed the whole tree for the first century or two, or until a hundred

to a hundred and fifty feet high, is arrowhead in form, and, compared

with the solemn rigidity of age, is as sensitive to the wind as a

squirrel tail. The lower branches are gradually dropped as it grows

older, and the upper ones thinned out until comparatively few are left.

These, however, are developed to great size, divide again and again,

and terminate in bossy rounded masses of leafy branchlets, while the

head becomes dome-shaped. Then poised in fullness of strength and

beauty, stern and solemn in mien, it glows with eager, enthusiastic

life, quivering to the tip of every leaf and branch and far-reaching

root, calm as a granite dome, the first to feel the touch of the rosy

beams of the morning, the last to bid the sun good-night.

[Illustration: A Giant Sequoia.]

Perfect specimens, unhurt by running fires or lightning, are singularly

regular and symmetrical in general form, though not at all

conventional, showing infinite variety in sure unity and harmony of

plan. The immensely strong, stately shafts, with rich purplish brown

bark, are free of limbs for a hundred and fifty feet or so, though

dense tufts of sprays occur here and there, producing an ornamental

effect, while long parallel furrows give a fluted columnar appearance.

It shoots forth its limbs with equal boldness in every direction,

showing no weather side. On the old trees the main branches are crooked

and rugged, and strike rigidly outward mostly at right angles from the

trunk, but there is always a certain measured restraint in their reach

which keeps them within bounds. No other Sierra tree has foliage so

densely massed or outline so finely, firmly drawn and so obediently

subordinate to an ideal type. A particularly knotty, angular,

ungovernable-looking branch, five to eight feet in diameter and perhaps

a thousand years old, may occasionally be seen pushing out from the

trunk as if determined to break across the bounds of the regular curve,

but like all the others, as soon as the general outline is approached

the huge limb dissolves into massy bosses of branchlets and sprays, as

if the tree were growing beneath an invisible bell glass against the

sides of which the branches were moulded, while many small, varied

departures from the ideal form give the impression of freedom to grow

as they like.

Except in picturesque old age, after being struck by lightning and

broken by a thousand snowstorms, this regularity of form is one of the

Big Tree’s most distinguishing characteristics. Another is the simple

sculptural beauty of the trunk and its great thickness as compared with

its height and the width of the branches, many of them being from eight

to ten feet in diameter at a height of two hundred feet from the

ground, and seeming more like finely modeled and sculptured

architectural columns than the stems of trees, while the great strong

limbs are like rafters supporting the magnificent dome head.

The root system corresponds in magnitude with the other dimensions of

the tree, forming a flat far-reaching spongy network two hundred feet

or more in width without any taproot, and the instep is so grand and

fine, so suggestive of endless strength, it is long ere the eye is

released to look above it. The natural swell of the roots, though at

first sight excessive, gives rise to buttresses no greater than are

required for beauty as well as strength, as at once appears when you

stand back far enough to see the whole tree in its true proportions.

The fineness of the taper of the trunk is shown by its thickness at

great heights—a diameter of ten feet at a height of two hundred being,

as we have seen, not uncommon. Indeed the boles of but few trees hold

their thickness as well as Sequoia. Resolute, consummate, determined in

form, always beheld with wondering admiration, the Big Tree always

seems unfamiliar, standing alone, unrelated, with peculiar physiognomy,

awfully solemn and earnest. Nevertheless, there is nothing alien in its

looks. The Madrona, clad in thin, smooth, red and yellow bark and big

glossy leaves, seems, in the dark coniferous forests of Washington and

Vancouver Island, like some lost wanderer from the magnolia groves of

the South, while the Sequoia, with all its strangeness, seems more at

home than any of its neighbors, holding the best right to the ground as

the oldest, strongest inhabitant. One soon becomes acquainted with new

species of pine and fir spruce as with friendly people, shaking their

outstretched branches like shaking hands, and fondling their beautiful

little ones; while the venerable aboriginal Sequoia, ancient of other

days, keeps you at a distance, taking no notice of you, speaking only

to the winds, thinking only of the sky, looking as strange in aspect

and behavior among the neighboring trees as would the mastodon or hairy

elephant among the homely bears and deer. Only the Sierra Juniper is at

all like it, standing rigid and unconquerable on glacial pavements for

thousands of years, grim, rusty, silent, uncommunicative, with an air

of antiquity about as pronounced as that so characteristic of Sequoia.

The bark of full grown trees is from one to two feet thick, rich

cinnamon brown, purplish on young trees and shady parts of the old,

forming magnificent masses of color with the underbrush and beds of

flowers. Toward the end of winter the trees themselves bloom while the

snow is still eight or ten feet deep. The pistillate flowers are about

three eighths of an inch long, pale green, and grow in countless

thousands on the ends of the sprays. The staminate are still more

abundant, pale yellow, a fourth of an inch long; and when the golden

pollen is ripe they color the whole tree and dust the air and the

ground far and near.

The cones are bright grass-green in color, about two and a half inches

long, one and a half wide, and are made up of thirty or forty strong,

closely packed, rhomboidal scales with four to eight seeds at the base

of each. The seeds are extremely small and light, being only from an

eighth to a fourth of an inch long and wide, including a filmy

surrounding wing, which causes them to glint and waver in falling and

enables the wind to carry them considerable distances from the tree.

The faint lisp of snowflakes as they alight is one of the smallest

sounds mortal can hear. The sound of falling Sequoia seeds, even when

they happen to strike on flat leaves or flakes of bark, is about as

faint. Very different is the bumping and thudding of the falling cones.

Most of them are cut off by the Douglas squirrel and stored for the

sake of the seeds, small as they are. In the calm Indian summer these

busy harvesters with ivory sickles go to work early in the morning, as

soon as breakfast is over, and nearly all day the ripe cones fall in a

steady pattering, bumping shower. Unless harvested in this way they

discharge their seeds and remain on the trees for many years. In

fruitful seasons the trees are fairly laden. On two small specimen

branches one and a half and two inches in diameter I counted four

hundred and eighty cones. No other California conifer produces nearly

so many seeds, excepting perhaps its relative, the Redwood of the Coast

Mountains. Millions are ripened annually by a single tree, and the

product of one of the main groves in a fruitful year would suffice to

plant all the mountain ranges of the world.

The dense tufted sprays make snug nesting places for birds, and in some

of the loftiest, leafiest towers of verdure thousands of generations

have been reared, the great solemn trees shedding off flocks of merry

singers every year from nests, like the flocks of winged seeds from the

cones.

The Big Trees keeps its youth far longer than any of its neighbors.

Most silver firs are old in their second or third century, pines in

their fourth or fifth, while the Big Tree growing beside them is still

in the bloom of its youth, juvenile in every feature at the age of old

pines, and cannot be said to attain anything like prime size and beauty

before its fifteen hundredth year, or under favorable circumstances

become old before its three thousandth. Many, no doubt, are much older

than this. On one of the Kings River giants, thirty-five feet and eight

inches in diameter exclusive of bark, I counted upwards of four

thousand annual wood-rings, in which there was no trace of decay after

all these centuries of mountain weather. There is no absolute limit to

the existence of any tree. Their death is due to accidents, not, as of

animals, to the wearing out of organs. Only the leaves die of old age,

their fall is foretold in their structure; but the leaves are renewed

every year and so also are the other essential organs—wood, roots,

bark, buds. Most of the Sierra trees die of disease. Thus the

magnificent silver firs are devoured by fungi, and comparatively few of

them live to see their three hundredth birth year. But nothing hurts

the Big Tree. I never saw one that was sick or showed the slightest

sign of decay. It lives on through indefinite thousands of years until

burned, blown down, undermined, or shattered by some tremendous

lightning stroke. No ordinary bolt ever seriously hurts Sequoia. In all

my walks I have seen only one that was thus killed outright. Lightning,

though rare in the California lowlands, is common on the Sierra. Almost

every day in June and July small thunderstorms refresh the main forest

belt. Clouds like snowy mountains of marvelous beauty grow rapidly in

the calm sky about midday and cast cooling shadows and showers that

seldom last more than an hour. Nevertheless these brief, kind storms

wound or kill a good many trees. I have seen silver firs two hundred

feet high split into long peeled rails and slivers down to the roots,

leaving not even a stump, the rails radiating like the spokes of a

wheel from a hole in the ground where the tree stood. But the Sequoia,

instead of being split and slivered, usually has forty or fifty feet of

its brash knotty top smashed off in short chunks about the size of

cord-wood, the beautiful rosy red ruins covering the ground in a circle

a hundred feet wide or more. I never saw any that had been cut down to

the ground or even to below the branches except one in the Stanislaus

Grove, about twelve feet in diameter, the greater part of which was

smashed to fragments, leaving only a leafless stump about seventy-five

feet high. It is a curious fact that all the very old Sequoias have

lost their heads by lightning. “All things come to him who waits.” But

of all living things Sequoia is perhaps the only one able to wait long

enough to make sure of being struck by lightning. Thousands of years it

stands ready and waiting, offering its head to every passing cloud as

if inviting its fate, praying for heaven’s fire as a blessing; and when

at last the old head is off, another of the same shape immediately

begins to grow on. Every bud and branch seems excited, like bees that

have lost their queen, and tries hard to repair the damage. Branches

that for many centuries have been growing out horizontally at once turn

upward and all their branchlets arrange themselves with reference to a

new top of the same peculiar curve as the old one. Even the small

subordinate branches halfway down the trunk do their best to push up to

the top and help in this curious head-making.

The great age of these noble trees is even more wonderful than their

huge size, standing bravely up, millennium in, millennium out, to all

that fortune may bring them, triumphant over tempest and fire and time,

fruitful and beautiful, giving food and shelter to multitudes of small

fleeting creatures dependent on their bounty. Other trees may claim to

be about as large or as old: Australian Gums, Senegal Baobabs, Mexican

Taxodiums, English Yews, and venerable Lebanon Cedars, trees of renown,

some of which are from ten to thirty feet in diameter. We read of oaks

that are supposed to have existed ever since the creation, but strange

to say I can find no definite accounts of the age of any of these

trees, but only estimates based on tradition and assumed average rates

of growth. No other known tree approaches the Sequoia in grandeur,

height and thickness being considered, and none as far as I know has

looked down on so many centuries or opens such impressive and

suggestive views into history. The majestic monument of the Kings River

Forest is, as we have seen, fully four thousand years old, and

measuring the rings of annual growth we find it was no less than

twenty-seven feet in diameter at the beginning of the Christian era,

while many observations lead me to expect the discovery of others ten

or twenty centuries older. As to those of moderate age, there are

thousands, mere youth as yet, that—

“Saw the light that shone

On Mahomet’s uplifted crescent,

On many a royal gilded throne

And deed forgotten in the present,

. . . saw the age of sacred trees

And Druid groves and mystic larches,

And saw from forest domes like these

The builder bring his Gothic arches.”

Great trees and groves used to be venerated as sacred monuments and

halls of council and worship. But soon after the discovery of the

Calaveras Grove one of the grandest trees was cut down for the sake of

a stump! The laborious vandals had seen “the biggest tree in the

world,” then, forsooth, they must try to see the biggest stump and

dance on it.

The growth in height for the first two centuries is usually at the rate

of eight to ten inches a year. Of course all very large trees are old,

but those equal in size may vary greatly in age on account of

variations in soil, closeness or openness of growth, etc. Thus a tree

about ten feet in diameter that grew on the side of a meadow was,

according to my own count of the wood-rings, only two hundred and

fifty-nine years old at the time it was felled, while another in the

same grove, of almost exactly the same size but less favorably

situated, was fourteen hundred and forty years old. The Calaveras tree

cut for a dance floor was twenty-four feet in diameter and only

thirteen hundred years old, another about the same size was a thousand

years older.

The following Sequoia notes and measurements are copied from my

notebooks:—

Diameter. Diameter. Height in Age.

Feet. Inches. Feet. Years.

0 1 3-4 10 7

0 5 24 20

0 5 25 41

0 6 25 66

0 6 28 1-2 39

0 8 25 29

0 11 45 71

1 0 60 71

3 2 156 260

6 0 192 240

7 3 195 339

7 3 255 506

7 6 240 493

7 7 207 424

9 0 243 259

9 3 222 280

10 6 1440

12 1825[1]

15 2150[2]

24 1300

25 2300

35 8 inside bark over 4000

[1] 6 feet in diameter at height of 200 feet.

[2] 7 feet in diameter at height of 200 feet.

Little, however, is to be learned in confused, hurried tourist trips,

spending only a poor noisy hour in a branded grove with a guide. You

should go looking and listening alone on long walks through the wild

forests and groves in all the seasons of the year. In the spring the

winds are balmy and sweet, blowing up and down over great beds of

chaparral and through the woods now rich in softening balsam and rosin

and the scent of steaming earth. The sky is mostly sunshine, oftentimes

tempered by magnificent clouds, the breath of the sea built up into new

mountain ranges, warm during the day, cool at night, good

flower-opening weather. The young cones of the Big Trees are showing in

clusters, their flower time already past, and here and there you may

see the sprouting of their tiny seeds of the previous autumn, taking

their first feeble hold of the ground and unpacking their tender whorls

of cotyledon leaves. Then you will naturally be led on to consider

their wonderful growth up and up through the mountain weather, now

buried in snow bent and crinkled, now straightening in summer sunshine

like uncoiling ferns, shooting eagerly aloft in youth’s joyful prime,

and towering serene and satisfied through countless years of calm and

storm, the greatest of plants and all but immortal.

Under the huge trees up come the small plant people, putting forth

fresh leaves and blossoming in such profusion that the hills and

valleys would still seem gloriously rich and glad were all the grand

trees away. By the side of melting snowbanks rise the crimson sarcodes,

round-topped and massive as the Sequoias themselves, and beds of blue

violets and larger yellow one with leaves curiously lobed; azalea and

saxifrage, daisies and lilies on the mossy banks of the streams; and a

little way back of them, beneath the trees and on sunny spots on the

hills around the groves, wild rose and rubus, spiræa and ribes,

mitella, tiarella, campanula, monardella, forget-me-not, etc., many of

them as worthy of lore immortality as the famous Scotch daisy, wanting

only a Burns to sing them home to all hearts.

In the midst of this glad plant work the birds are busy nesting, some

singing at their work, some silent, others, especially the big pileated

woodpeckers, about as noisy as backwoodsmen building their cabins. Then

every bower in the groves is a bridal bower, the winds murmur softly

overhead, the streams sing with the birds, while from far-off

waterfalls and thunder-clouds come deep rolling organ notes.

In summer the days go by in almost constant brightness, cloudless

sunshine pouring over the forest roof, while in the shady depths there

is the subdued light of perpetual morning. The new leaves and cones are

growing fast and make a grand show, seeds are ripening, young birds

learning to fly, and with myriads of insects glad as birds keep the air

whirling, joy in every wingbeat, their humming and singing blending

with the gentle ah-ing of the winds; while at evening every thicket and

grove is enchanted by the tranquil chirping of the blessed hylas, the

sweetest and most peaceful of sounds, telling the very heart-joy of

earth as it rolls through the heavens.

[Illustration: Midsummer in the Sequoia Forest.]

In the autumn the sighing of the winds is softer than ever, the gentle

ah-ah-ing filling the sky with a fine universal mist of music, the

birds have little to say, and there is no appreciable stir or rustling

among the trees save that caused by the harvesting squirrels. Most of

the seeds are ripe and away, those of the trees mottling the sunny air,

glinting, glancing through the midst of the merry insect people, rocks

and trees, everything alike drenched in gold light, heaven’s colors

coming down to the meadows and groves, making every leaf a romance,

air, earth, and water in peace beyond thought, the great brooding days

opening and closing in divine psalms of color.

Winter comes suddenly, arrayed in storms, though to mountaineers silky

streamers on the peaks and the tones of the wind give sufficient

warning. You hear strange whisperings among the tree-tops, as if the

giants were taking counsel together. One after another, nodding and

swaying, calling and replying, spreads the news, until at with one

accord break forth into glorious song, welcoming the first grand

snowstorm of the year, and looming up in the dim clouds and snowdrifts

like lighthouse towers in flying scud and spray. Studying the behavior

of the giants from some friendly shelter, you will see that even in the

glow of their wildest enthusiasm, when the storm roars loudest, they

never lose their god-like composure, never toss their arms or bow or

wave like the pines, but only slowly, solemnly nod and sway, standing

erect, making no sign of strife, none of rest, neither in alliance nor

at war with the winds, too calmly, unconsciously noble and strong to

strive with or bid defiance to anything. Owing to the density of the

leafy branchlets and great breadth of head the Big Tree carries a much

heavier load of snow than any of its neighbors, and after a storm, when

the sky clears, the laden trees are a glorious spectacle, worth any

amount of cold camping to see. Every bossy limb and crown is solid

white, and the immense height of the giants becomes visible as the eye

travels the white steps of the colossal tower, each relieved by a mass

of blue shadow.

In midwinter the forest depths are as fresh and pure as the crevasses

and caves of glaciers. Grouse, nuthatches, a few woodpeckers, and other

hardy birds dwell in the groves all winter, and the squirrels may be

seen every clear day frisking about, lively as ever, tunneling to their

stores, never coming up empty-mouthed, dividing in the loose snow about

as quickly as ducks in water, while storms and sunshine sing to each

other.

One of the noblest and most beautiful of the late winter sights is the

blossoming of the Big Tree like gigantic goldenrods and the sowing of

their pollen over all the forest and the snow-covered ground—a most

glorious view of Nature’s immortal virility and flower-love.

One of my own best excursions among the Sequoias was made in the autumn

of 1875, when I explored the then unknown or little known Sequoia

region south of the Mariposa Grove for comprehensive views of the belt,

and to learn what I could of the peculiar distribution of the species

and its history in general. In particular I was anxious to try to find

out whether it had ever been more widely distributed since the glacial

period; what conditions favorable or otherwise were affecting it; what

were its relations to climate, topography, soil, and the other trees

growing with it, etc.; and whether, as was generally supposed, the

species was nearing extinction. I was already acquainted in a general

way with the northern groves, but excepting some passing glimpses

gained on excursions into the high Sierra about the head-waters of

Kings and Kern rivers I had seen nothing of the south end of the belt.

Nearly all my mountaineering has been done on foot, carrying as little

as possible, depending on camp-fires for warmth, that so I might be

light and free to go wherever my studies might lead. On this Sequoia

trip, which promised to be long, I was persuaded to take a small wild

mule with me to carry provisions and a pair of blankets. The friendly

owner of the animal, having noticed that I sometimes looked tired when

I came down from the peaks to replenish my bread sack, assured me that

his “little Brownie mule” was just what I wanted, tough as a knot,

perfectly untirable, low and narrow, just right for squeezing through

brush, able to climb like a chipmunk, jump from boulder to boulder like

a wild sheep, and go anywhere a man could go. But tough as he was and

accomplished as a climber, many a time in the course of our journey

when he was jaded and hungry, wedged fast in rocks or struggling in

chaparral like a fly in a spiderweb, his troubles were sad to see, and

I wished he would leave me and find his way home alone.

We set out from Yosemite about the end of August, and our first camp

was made in the well-known Mariposa Grove. Here and in the adjacent

pine woods I spent nearly a week, carefully examining the boundaries of

the grove for traces of its greater extension without finding any. Then

I struck out into the majestic trackless forest to the southeastward,

hoping to find new groves or traces of old ones in the dense silver fir

and pine woods about the head of Big Creek, where soil and climate

seemed most favorable to their growth, but not a single tree or old

monument of any sort came to light until I climbed the high rock called

Wamellow by the Indians. Here I obtained telling views of the fertile

forest-filled basin of the upper Fresno. Innumerable spires of the

noble yellow pine were displayed rising above one another on the

braided slopes, and yet nobler sugar pines with superb arms

outstretched in the rich autumn light, while away toward the southwest,

on the verge of the glowing horizon, I discovered the majestic

dome-like crowns of Big Trees towering high over all, singly and in

close grove congregations. There is something wonderfully attractive in

this king tree, even when beheld from afar, that draws us to it with

indescribable enthusiasm; its superior height and massive smoothly

rounded outlines proclaiming its character in any company; and when one

of the oldest attains full stature on some commanding ridge it seems

the very god of the woods. I ran back to camp, packed Brownie, steered

over the divide and down into the heart of the Fresno Grove. Then

choosing a camp on the side of a brook where the grass was good, I made

a cup of tea, and set off free among the brown giants, glorying in the

abundance of new work about me. One of the first special things that

caught my attention was an extensive landslip. The ground on the side

of a stream had given way to a depth of about fifty feet and with all

its trees had been launched into the bottom of the stream ravine. Most

of the trees—pines, firs, incense cedar, and Sequoia—were still

standing erect and uninjured, as if unconscious that anything out of

the common had happened. Tracing the ravine alongside the avalanche, I

saw many trees whose roots had been laid bare, and in one instance

discovered a Sequoia about fifteen feet in diameter growing above an

old prostrate trunk that seemed to belong to a former generation. This

slip had occurred seven or eight years ago, and I was glad to find that

not only were most of the Big Trees uninjured, but that many companies

of hopeful seedlings and saplings were growing confidently on the fresh

soil along the broken front of the avalanche. These young trees were

already eight or ten feet high, and were shooting up vigorously, as if

sure of eternal life, though young pines, firs, and libocedrus were

runing a race with them for the sunshine with an even start. Farther

down the ravine I counted five hundred and thirty-six promising young

Sequoias on a bed of rough bouldery soil not exceeding two acres in

extent.

The Fresno Big Trees covered an area of about four square miles, and

while wandering about surveying the boundaries of the grove, anxious to

see every tree, I came suddenly on a handsome log cabin, richly

embowered and so fresh and unweathered it was still redolent of gum and

balsam like a newly felled tree. Strolling forward, wondering who could

have built it, I found an old, weary-eyed, speculative, gray-haired man

on a bark stool by the door, reading a book. The discovery of his

hermitage by a stranger seemed to surprise him, but when I explained

that I was only a tree-lover sauntering along the mountains to study

Sequoia, he bade me welcome, made me bring my mule down to a little

slanting meadow before his door and camp with him, promising to show me

his pet trees and many curious things bearing on my studies.

After supper, as the evening shadows were falling, the good hermit

sketched his life in the mines, which in the main was like that of most

other pioneer gold-hunters—a succession of intense experiences full of

big ups and downs like the mountain topography. Since “’49” he had

wandered over most of the Sierra, sinking innumerable prospect holes

like a sailor making soundings, digging new channels for streams,

sifting gold-sprinkled boulder and gravel beds with unquenchable

energy, life’s noon the meanwhile passing unnoticed into late afternoon

shadows. Then, health and gold gone, the game played and lost, like a

wounded deer creeping into this forest solitude, he awaits the sundown

call. How sad the undertones of many a life here, now the noise of the

first big gold battles has died away! How many interesting wrecks lie

drifted and stranded in hidden nooks of the gold region! Perhaps no

other range contains the remains of so many rare and interesting men.

The name of my hermit friend is John A. Nelder, a fine kind man, who in

going into the woods has at last gone home; for he loves nature truly,

and realizes that these last shadowy days with scarce a glint of gold

in them are the best of all. Birds, squirrels, plants get loving,

natural recognition, and delightful it was to see how sensitively he

responds to the silent influences of the woods. His eyes brightened as

he gazed on the trees that stand guard around his little home;

squirrels and mountain quail came to his call to be fed, and he

tenderly stroked the little snowbent sapling Sequoias, hoping they yet

might grow straight to the sky and rule the grove. One of the greatest

of his trees stands a little way back of his cabin, and he proudly led

me to it, bidding me admire its colossal proportions and measure it to

see if in all the forest there could be another so grand. It proved to

be only twenty-six feet in diameter, and he seemed distressed to learn

that the Mariposa Grizzly Giant was larger. I tried to comfort him by

observing that his was the taller, finer formed, and perhaps the more

favorably situated. Then he led me to some noble ruins, remnants of

gigantic trunks of trees that he supposed must have been larger than

any now standing, and though they had lain on the damp ground exposed

to fire and the weather for centuries, the wood was perfectly sound.

Sequoia timber is not only beautiful in color, rose red when fresh, and

as easily worked as pine, but it is almost absolutely unperishable.

Build a house of Big Tree logs on granite and that house will last

about as long as its foundation. Indeed fire seems to be the only agent

that has any appreciable effect on it. From one of these ancient trunk

remnants I cut a specimen of the wood, which neither in color,

strength, nor soundness could be distinguished from specimens cut from

living trees, although it had certainly lain on the damp forest floor

for more than three hundred and eighty years, probably more than thrice

as long. The time in this instance was determined as follows: When the

tree from which the specimen was derived fell it sunk itself into the

ground, making a ditch about two hundred feet long and five or six feet

deep; and in the middle of this ditch, where a part of the fallen trunk

had been burned, a silver fir four feet in diameter and three hundred

and eighty years old was growing, showing that the Sequoia trunk had

lain on the ground three hundred and eighty years plus the unknown time

that it lay before the part whose place had been taken by the fir was

burned out of the way, and that which had elapsed ere the seed from

which the monumental fir sprang fell into the prepared soil and took

root. Now because Sequoia trunks are never wholly consumed in one

forest fire and these fires recur only at considerable intervals, and

because Sequoia ditches, after being cleared, are often left unplanted

for centuries, it becomes evident that the trunk remnant in question

may have been on the ground a thousand years or more. Similar vestiges

are common, and together with the root-bowls and long straight ditches

of the fallen monarchs, throw a sure light back on the post-glacial

history of the species, bearing on its distribution. One of the most

interesting features of this grove is the apparent ease and strength

and comfortable independence in which the trees occupy their place in

the general forest. Seedlings, saplings, young and middle-aged trees

are grouped promisingly around the old patriarchs, betraying no sign of

approach to extinction. On the contrary, all seem to be saying,

“Everything is to our mind and we mean to live forever.” But, sad to

tell, a lumber company was building a large mill and flume near by,

assuring widespread destruction.

In the cones and sometimes in the lower portion of the trunk and roots

there is a dark gritty substance which dissolves readily in water and

yields a magnificent purple color. It is a strong astringent, and is

said to be used by the Indians as a big medicine. Mr. Nelder showed me

specimens of ink he had made from it, which I tried and found good,

flowing freely and holding its color well. Indeed everything about the

tree seems constant. With these interesting trees, forming the largest

of the northern groves, I stopped only a week, for I had far to go

before the fall of the snow. The hermit seemed to cling to me and tried

to make me promise to winter with him after the season’s work was done.

Brownie had to be got home, however, and other work awaited me,

therefore I could only promise to stop a day or two on my way back to

Yosemite and give him the forest news.

The next two weeks were spent in the wide basin of the San Joaquin,

climbing, innumerable ridges and surveying the far-extending sea of

pines and firs. But not a single Sequoia crown appeared among them all,

nor any trace of a fallen trunk, until I had crossed the south divide

of the basin, opposite Dinky Creek, one of the northmost tributaries of

Kings River. On this stream there is a small grove, said to have been

discovered a few years before my visit by two hunters in pursuit of a

wounded bear. Just as I was fording one of the branches of Dinky Creek

I met a shepherd, and when I asked him whether he knew anything about

the Big Trees of the neighborhood he replied, “I know all about them,

for I visited them only a few days ago and pastured my sheep in the

grove.” He was fresh from the East, and as this was his first summer in

the Sierra I was curious to learn what impression the Sequoias had made

on him. When I asked whether it was true that the Big Trees were really

so big as people say, he warmly replied, “Oh, yes sir, you bet. They’re

whales. I never used to believe half I heard about the awful size of

California trees, but they’re monsters and no mistake. One of them over

here, they tell me, is the biggest tree in the whole world, and I guess

it is, for it’s forty foot through and as many good long paces around.”

He was very earnest, and in fullness of faith offered to guide me to

the grove that I might not miss seeing this biggest tree. A fair

measurement four feet from the ground, above the main swell of the

roots, showed a diameter of only thirty-two feet, much to the young

man’s disgust. “Only thirty-two feet,” he lamented, “only thirty-two,

and I always thought it was forty!” Then with a sigh of relief, “No

matter, that’s a big tree, anyway; no fool of a tree, sir, that you can

cut a plank out of thirty feet broad, straight-edged, no bark, all good

wood, sound and solid. It would make the brag white pine planks from

old Maine look like laths.” A good many other fine specimens are

distributed along three small branches of the creek, and I noticed

several thrifty moderate-sized Sequoias growing on a granite ledge,

apparently as independent of deep soil as the pines and firs, clinging

to seams and fissures and sending their roots far abroad in search of

moisture.

The creek is very clear and beautiful, gliding through tangles of

shrubs and flower beds, gay bee and butterfly pastures, the grove’s own

stream, pure Sequoia water, flowing all the year, every drop filtered

through moss and leaves and the myriad spongy rootlets of the giant

trees. One of the most interesting features of the grove is a small

waterfall with a flowery, ferny, clear brimming pool at the foot of it.

How cheerily it sings the songs of the wilderness, and how sweet its

tones! You seem to taste as well as hear them, while only the subdued

roar of the river in the deep cañon reaches up into the grove, sounding

like the sea and the winds. So charming a fall and pool in the heart of

so glorious a forest food pagans would have consecrated to some lovely

nymph.

Hence down into the main Kings River cañon, a mile deep, I led and

dragged and shoved my patient, much-enduring mule through miles and

miles and gardens and brush, fording innumerable streams, crossing

savage rock slopes and taluses, scrambling, sliding through gulches and

gorges, then up into the grand Sequoia forests of the south side,

cheered by the royal crowns displayed on the narrow horizon. In a day

and a half we reached the Sequoia woods in the neighborhood of the old

Thomas Mill Flat. Thence striking off northeastward I found a

magnificent forest nearly six miles long by two in width, composed

mostly of Big Trees, with outlying groves as far east as Boulder Creek.

Here five or six days were spent, and it was delightful to learn from

countless trees, old and young, how comfortably they were settled down

in concordance with climate and soil and their noble neighbors.

Imbedded in these majestic woods there are numerous meadows, around the

sides of which the Big Trees press close together in beautiful lines,

showing their grandeur openly from the ground to their domed heads in

the sky. The young trees are still more numerous and exuberant than in

the Fresno and Dinky groves, standing apart in beautiful family groups,

or crowding around the old giants. For every venerable

lightning-stricken tree, there is one or more in all the glory of

prime, and for each of these, many young trees and crowds of saplings.

The young trees express the grandeur of their race in a way indefinable

by any words at my command. When they are five or six feet in diameter

and a hundred and fifty feet high, they seem like mere baby saplings as

many inches in diameter, their juvenile habit and gestures completely

veiling their real size, even to those who, from long experience, are

able to make fair approximation in their measurements of common trees.

One morning I noticed three airy, spiry, quick-growing babies on the

side of a meadow, the largest of which I took to be about eight inches

in diameter. On measuring it, I found to any astonishment it was five

feet six inches in diameter, and about a hundred and forty feet high.

On a bed of sandy ground fifteen yards square, which had been occupied

by four sugar pines, I counted ninety-four promising seedlings, an

instance of Sequoia gaining ground from its neighbors. Here also I

noted eighty-six young Sequoias from one to fifty feet high on less

than half an acre of ground that had been cleared and prepared for

their reception by fire. This was a small bay burned into dense

chaparral, showing that fire, the great destroyer of tree life, is

sometimes followed by conditions favorable for new growths. Sufficient

fresh soil, however, is furnished for the constant renewal of the

forest by the fall of old trees without the help of any other

agent,—burrowing animals, fire, flood, landslip, etc.,—for the ground

is thus turned and stirred as well as cleared, and in every roomy,

shady hollow beside the walls of upturned roots many hopeful seedlings

spring up.

The largest, and as far as I know the oldest, of all the Kings River

trees that I saw is the majestic stump, already referred to, about a

hundred and forty feet high, which above then swell of the roots is

thirty-five feet and eight inches inside the bark, and over four

thousand years old. It was burned nearly half through at the base, and

I spent a day in chopping off the charred surface, cutting into the

heart, and counting the wood-rings with the aid of a lens. I made out a

little over four thousand without difficulty or doubt, but I was unable

to get a complete count, owing to confusion in the rings where wounds

had been healed over. Judging by what is left of it, this was a fine,

tall, symmetrical tree nearly forty feet in diameter before it lost its

bark. In the last sixteen hundred and seventy-two years the increase in

diameter was ten feet. A short distance south of this forest lies a

beautiful grove, now mostly included in the General Grant National

Park. I found many shake-makers at work in it, access to these

magnificent woods having been made easy by the old mill wagon road. The

Park is only two miles square, and the largest of its many fine trees

is the General Grant, so named before the date of my first visit,

twenty-eight years ago, and said to be the largest tree in the world,

though above the craggy bulging base the diameter is less than thirty

feet. The Sanger Lumber Company owns nearly all the Kings River groves

outside the Park, and for many years the mills have been spreading

desolation without any advantage.

One of the shake-makers directed me to an “old snag biggeren Grant.” It

proved to be a huge black charred stump thirty-two feet in diameter,

the next in size to the grand monument mentioned above.

[Illustration: “General Grant” Sequoia in General Grant National Park.]

I found a scattered growth of Big Trees extending across the main

divide to within a short distance of Hyde’s Mill, on a tributary of Dry

Creek. The mountain ridge on the south side of the stream was covered

from base to summit with a most superb growth of Big Trees. What a

picture it made! In all my wide forest wanderings I had seen none so

sublime. Every tree of all the mighty host seemed perfect in beauty and

strength, and their majestic domed heads, rising above one another on

the mountain slope, were most imposingly displayed, like a range of

bossy upswelling cumulus clouds on a calm sky.

In this glorious forest the mill was busy, forming a sore, sad centre

of destruction, though small as yet, so immensely heavy was the growth.

Only the smaller and most accessible of the trees were being cut. The

logs, from three to ten or twelve feet in diameter, were dragged or

rolled with long strings of oxen into a chute and sent flying down the

steep mountain side to the mill flat, where the largest of them were

blasted into manageable dimensions for the saws. And as the timber is

very brash, by this blasting and careless felling on uneven ground,

half or three fourths of the timber was wasted.

I spent several days exploring the ridge and counting the annual wood

rings on a large number of stumps in the clearings, then replenished my

bread sack and pushed on southward. All the way across the broad rough

basins of the Kaweah and Tule rivers Sequoia ruled supreme, forming an

almost continuous belt for sixty or seventy miles, waving up and down

in huge massy mountain billows in compliance with the grand

glacier-ploughed topography.

Day after day, from grove to grove, cañon to cañon, I made a long,

wavering way, terribly rough in some places for Brownie, but cheery for

me, for Big Trees were seldom out of sight. We crossed the rugged,

picturesque basins of Redwood Creek, the North Fork of the Kaweah, and

Marble Fork gloriously forested, and full of beautiful cascades and

falls, sheer and slanting, infinitely varied with broad curly foam

fleeces and strips of embroidery in which the sunbeams revel. Thence we

climbed into the noble forest on the Marble and Middle Fork Divide.

After a general exploration of the Kaweah basin, this part of the

Sequoia belt seemed to me the finest, and I then named it “the Giant

Forest.” It extends, a magnificent growth of giants grouped in pure

temple groves, ranged in colonnades along the sides of meadows, or

scattered among the other trees, from the granite headlands overlooking

the hot foothills and plains of the San Joaquin back to within a few

miles of the old glacier fountains at an elevation of 5000 to 8400 feet

above the sea.

When I entered this sublime wilderness the day was nearly done, the

trees with rosy, glowing countenances seemed to be hushed and

thoughtful, as if waiting in conscious religious dependence on the sun,

and one naturally walked softly and awe-stricken among them. I wandered

on, meeting nobler trees where all are noble, subdued in the general

calm, as if in some vast hall pervaded by the deepest sanctities and

solemnities that sway human souls. At sundown the trees seemed to cease

their worship and breathe free. I heard the birds going home. I too

sought a home for the night on the edge of a level meadow where there

is a long, open view between the evenly ranked trees standing guard

along its sides. Then after a good place was found for poor Brownie,

who had had a hard, weary day sliding and scrambling across the Marble

Cañon, I made my bed and supper and lay on my back looking up to the

stars through pillared arches finer far than the pious heart of man,

telling its love, ever reared. Then I took a walk up the meadow to see

the trees in the pale light. They seemed still more marvelously massive

and tall than by day, heaving their colossal heads into the depths of

the sky, among the stars, some of which appeared to be sparkling on

their branches like flowers. I built a big fire that vividly illumined

the huge brown boles of the nearest trees and the little plants and

cones and fallen leaves at their feet, keeping up the show until I fell

asleep to dream of boundless forests and trail-building for Brownie.

Joyous birds welcomed the dawn; and the squirrels, now their food cones

were ripe and had to be quickly gathered and stored for winter, began

their work before sunrise. My tea-and-bread-crumb breakfast was soon

done, and leaving jaded Brownie to feed and rest I sauntered forth to

my studies. In every direction Sequoia ruled the woods. Most of the

other big conifers were present here and there, but not as rivals or

companions. They only served to thicken and enrich the general

wilderness. Trees of every age cover craggy ridges as well as the deep

moraine-soiled slopes, and plant their magnificent shafts along every

brookside and meadow. Bogs and meadows are rare or entirely wanting in

the isolated groves north of Kings River; here there is a beautiful

series of them lying on the broad top of the main dividing ridge,

imbedded in the very heart of the mammoth woods as if for ornament,

their smooth, plushy bosoms kept bright and fertile by streams and

sunshine.

Resting awhile on one of the most beautiful of them when the sun was

high, it seemed impossible that any other forest picture in the world

could rival it. There lay the grassy, flowery lawn, three fourths of a

mile long, smoothly outspread, basking in mellow autumn light, colored

brown and yellow and purple, streaked with lines of green along the

streams, and ruffled here and there with patches of ledum and scarlet

vaccinium. Around the margin there is first a fringe of azalea and

willow bushes, colored orange yellow, enlivened with vivid dashes of

red cornel, as if painted. Then up spring the mighty walls of verdure

three hundred feet high, the brown fluted pillars so thick and tall and

strong they seem fit to uphold the sky; the dense foliage, swelling

forward in rounded bosses on the upper half, variously shaded and

tinted, that of the young trees dark green, of the old yellowish. An

aged lightning-smitten patriarch standing a little forward beyond the

general line with knotty arms outspread was covered with gray and

yellow lichens and surrounded by a group of saplings whose slender

spires seemed to lack not a single leaf or spray in their wondrous

perfection. Such was the Kaweah meadow picture that golden afternoon,

and as I gazed every color seemed to deepen and glow as if the progress

of the fresh sun-work were visible from hour to hour, while every tree

seemed religious and conscious of the presence of God. A free man

revels in a scene like this and time goes by unmeasured. I stood fixed

in silent wonder or sauntered about shifting my points of view,

studying the physiognomy of separate trees, and going out to the

different color patches to see how they were put on and what they were

made of, giving free expression to my joy, exulting in Nature’s wild

immortal vigor and beauty, never dreaming any other human being was

near. Suddenly the spell was broken by dull bumping, thudding sounds,

and a man and horse came in sight at the farther end of the meadow,

where they seemed sadly out of place. A good big bear or mastodon or

megatherium would have been more in keeping with the old mammoth

forest. Nevertheless, it is always pleasant to meet one of our own

species after solitary rambles, and I stepped out where I could be seen

and shouted, when the rider reined in his galloping mustang and waited

my approach. He seemed too much surprised to speak until, laughing in

his puzzled face, I said I was glad to meet a fellow mountaineer in so

lonely a place. Then he abruptly asked, “What are you doing? How did

you get here?” I explained that I came across the cañons from Yosemite

and was only looking at the trees. “Oh then, I know,” he said, greatly

to my surprise, “you must be John Muir.” He was herding a band of

horses that had been driven up a rough trail from the lowlands to feed

on these forest meadows. A few handfuls of crumb detritus was all that

was left in my bread sack, so I told him that I was nearly out of

provision and asked whether he could spare me a little flour. “Oh yes,

of course you can have anything I’ve got,” he said. “Just take my track

and it will lead you to my camp in a big hollow log on the side of a

meadow two or three miles from here. I must ride after some strayed

horses, but I’ll be back before night; in the mean time make yourself

at home.” He galloped away to the northward, I returned to my own camp,

saddled Brownie, and by the middle of the afternoon discovered his

noble den in a fallen Sequoia hollowed by fire—a spacious loghouse of

one log, carbon-lined, centuries old yet sweet and fresh, weather

proof, earthquake proof, likely to outlast the most durable stone

castle, and commanding views of garden and grove grander far than the

richest king ever enjoyed. Brownie found plenty of grass and I found

bread, which I ate with views from the big round, ever-open door. Soon

the good Samaritan mountaineer came in, and I enjoyed a famous rest

listening to his observations on trees, animals, adventures, etc.,

while he was busily preparing supper. In answer to inquiries concerning

the distribution of the Big Trees he gave a good deal of particular

information of the forest we were in, and he had heard that the species

extended a long way south, he knew not now far. I wandered about for

several days within a radius of six or seven miles of the camp,

surveying boundaries, measuring trees, and climbing the highest points

for general views. From the south side of the divide I saw telling

ranks of Sequoia-crowned headlands stretching far into the hazy

distance, and plunging vaguely down into profound cañon depths

foreshadowing weeks of good work. I had now been out on the trip more

than a month, and I began to fear my studies would be interrupted by

snow, for winter was drawing nigh. “Where there isn’t a way make a

way,” is easily said when no way at the time is needed, but to the

Sierra explorer with a mule traveling across the cañon lines of

drainage the brave old phrase becomes heavy with meaning. There are

ways across the Sierra graded by glaciers, well marked, and followed by

men and beasts and birds, and one of them even by locomotives; but none

natural or artificial along the range, and the explorer who would thus

travel at right angles to the glacial ways must traverse cañons and

ridges extending side by side in endless succession, roughened by side

gorges and gulches and stubborn chaparral, and defended by innumerable

sheer-fronted precipices. My own ways are easily made in any direction,

but Brownie, though one of the toughest and most skillful of his race,

was oftentimes discouraged for want of hands, and caused endless work.

Wild at first, he was tame enough now; and when turned loose he not

only refused to run away, but as his troubles increased came to depend

on me in such a pitiful, touching way, I became attached to him and

helped him as if he were a good-natured boy in distress, and then the

labor grew lighter. Bidding good-by to the kind Sequoia cave-dweller,

we vanished again in the wilderness, drifting slowly southward,

Sequoias on every ridge-top beckoning and pointing the way.

In the forest between the Middle and East forks of the Kaweah, I met a

great fire, and as fire is the master scourge and controller of the

distribution of trees, I stopped to watch it and learn what I could of

its works and ways with the giants. It came racing up the steep

chaparral-covered slopes of the East Fork cañon with passionate

enthusiasm in a broad cataract of flames, now bending down low to feed

on the green bushes, devouring acres of them at a breath, now towering

high in the air as if looking abroad to choose a way, then stooping to

feed again, the lurid flapping surges and the smoke and terrible

rushing and roaring hiding all that is gentle and orderly in the work.

But as soon as the deep forest was reached the ungovernable flood

became calm like a torrent entering a lake, creeping and spreading

beneath the trees where the ground was level or sloped gently, slowly

nibbling the cake of compressed needles and scales with flames an inch

high, rising here and there to a foot or two on dry twigs and clumps of

small bushes and brome grass. Only at considerable intervals were

fierce bonfires lighted, where heavy branches broken off by snow had

accumulated, or around some venerable giant whose head had been

stricken off by lightning.

I tethered Brownie on the edge of a little meadow beside a stream a

good safe way off, and then cautiously chose a camp for myself in a big

stout hollow trunk not likely to be crushed by the fall of burning

trees, and made a bed of ferns and boughs in it. The night, however,

and the strange wild fireworks were too beautiful and exciting to allow

much sleep. There was no danger of being chased and hemmed in, for in

the main forest belt of the Sierra, even when swift winds are blowing,

fires seldom or never sweep over the trees in broad all-embracing

sheets as they do in the dense Rocky Mountain woods and in those of the

Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington. Here they creep from tree

to tree with tranquil deliberation, allowing close observation, though

caution is required in venturing around the burning giants to avoid

falling limbs and knots and fragments from dead shattered tops. Though

the day was best for study, I sauntered about night after night,

learning what I could and admiring the wonderful show vividly displayed

in the lonely darkness, the ground-fire advancing in long crooked lines

gently grazing and smoking on the close-pressed leaves, springing up in

thousands of little jets of pure flame on dry tassels and twigs, and

tall spires and flat sheets with jagged flapping edges dancing here and

there on grass tufts and bushes, big bonfires blazing in perfect storms

of energy where heavy branches mixed with small ones lay smashed

together in hundred cord piles, big red arches between spreading

root-swells and trees growing close together, huge fire-mantled trunks

on the hill slopes glowing like bars of hot iron, violet-colored fire

running up the tall trees, tracing the furrows of the bark in quick

quivering rills, and lighting magnificent torches on dry shattered

tops, and ever and anon, with a tremendous roar and burst of light,

young trees clad in low-descending feathery branches vanishing in one

flame two or three hundred feet high.

One of the most impressive and beautiful sights was made by the great

fallen trunks lying on the hillsides all red and glowing like colossal

iron bars fresh from a furnace, two hundred feet long some of them, and

ten to twenty feet thick. After repeated burnings have consumed the

bark and sapwood, the sound charred surface, being full of cracks and

sprinkled with leaves, is quickly overspread with a pure, rich, furred,

ruby glow almost flameless and smokeless, producing a marvelous effect

in the night. Another grand and interesting sight are the fires on the

tops of the largest living trees flaming above the green branches at a

height of perhaps two hundred feet, entirely cut off from the

ground-fires, and looking like signal beacons on watch towers. From one

standpoint I sometimes saw a dozen or more, those in the distance

looking like great stars above the forest roof. At first I could not

imagine how these Sequoia lamps were lighted, but the very first night,

strolling about waiting and watching, I saw the thing done again and

again. The thick, fibrous bark of old trees is divided by deep, nearly

continuous furrows, the sides of which are bearded with the bristling

ends of fibres broken by the growth swelling of the trunk, and when the

fire comes creeping around the feet of the trees, it runs up these

bristly furrows in lovely pale blue quivering, bickering rills of flame

with a low, earnest whispering sound to the lightning-shattered top of

the trunk, which, in the dry Indian summer, with perhaps leaves and

twigs and squirrel-gnawed cone-scales and seed-wings lodged in it, is

readily ignited. These lamp-lighting rills, the most beautiful fire

streams I ever saw, last only a minute or two, but the big lamps burn

with varying brightness for days and weeks, throwing off sparks like

the spray of a fountain, while ever and anon a shower of red coals

comes sifting down through the branches, followed at times with

startling effect by a big burned-off chunk weighing perhaps half a ton.

The immense bonfires where fifty or a hundred cords of peeled, split,

smashed wood has been piled around some old giant by a single stroke of

lightning is another grand sight in the night. The light is so great I

found I could read common print three hundred yards from them, and the

illumination of the circle of onlooking trees is indescribably

impressive. Other big fires, roaring and booming like waterfalls, were

blazing on the upper sides of trees on hillslopes, against which limbs

broken off by heavy snow had rolled, while branches high overhead,

tossed and shaken by the ascending air current, seemed to be writhing

in pain. Perhaps the most starting phenomenon of all was the quick

death of childlike Sequoias only a century or two of age. In the midst

of the other comparatively slow and steady fire work one of these tall,

beautiful saplings, leafy and branchy, would be seen blazing up

suddenly, all in one heaving, booming, passionate flame reaching from

the ground to the top of the tree and fifty to a hundred feet or more

above it, with a smoke column bending forward and streaming away on the

upper, free-flowing wind. To burn these green trees a strong fire of

dry wood beneath them is required, to send up a current of air hot

enough to distill inflammable gases from the leaves and sprays; then

instead of the lower limbs gradually catching fire and igniting the

next and next in succession, the whole tree seems to explode almost

simultaneously, and with awful roaring and throbbing a round, tapering

flame shoots up two or three hundred feet, and in a second or two is

quenched, leaving the green spire a black, dead mast, bristled and

roughened with down-curling boughs. Nearly all the trees that have been

burned down are lying with their heads uphill, because they are burned

far more deeply on the upper side, on account of broken limbs rolling

down against them to make hot fires, while only leaves and twigs

accumulate on the lower side and are quickly consumed without injury to

the tree. But green, resinless Sequoia wood burns very slowly, and many

successive fires are required to burn down a large tree. Fires can run

only at intervals of several years, and when the ordinary amount of

firewood that has rolled against the gigantic trunk is consumed, only a

shallow scar is made, which is slowly deepened by recurring fires until

far beyond the centre of gravity, and when at last the tree falls, it

of course falls uphill. The healing folds of wood layers on some of the

deeply burned trees show that centuries have elapsed since the last

wounds were made.

When a great Sequoia falls, its head is smashed into fragments about as

small as those made by lightning, which are mostly devoured by the

first running, hunting fire that finds them, while the trunk is slowly

wasted away by centuries of fire and weather. One of the most

interesting fire actions on the trunk is the boring of those great

tunnel-like hollows through which horsemen may gallop. All of these

famous hollows are burned out of the solid wood, for no Sequoia is ever

hollowed by decay. When the tree falls the brash trunk is often broken

straight across into sections as if sawed; into these joints the fire

creeps, and, on account of the great size of the broken ends, burns for

weeks or even months without being much influenced by the weather.

After the great glowing ends fronting each other have burned so far

apart that their rims cease to burn, the fire continues to work on in

the centres, and the ends become deeply concave. Then heat being

radiated from side to side, the burning goes on in each section of the

trunk independent of the other, until the diameter of the bore is so

great that the heat radiated across from side to side is not sufficient

to keep them burning. It appears, therefore, that only very large trees

can receive the fire-auger and have any shell rim left.

Fire attacks the large trees only at the ground, consuming the fallen

leaves and humus at their feet, doing them but little harm unless

considerable quantities of fallen limbs happen to be piled about them,

their thick mail of spongy, unpitchy, almost unburnable bark affording

strong protection. Therefore the oldest and most perfect unscarred

trees are found on ground that is nearly level, while those growing on

hillsides, against which falling branches roll, are always deeply

scarred on the upper side, and as we have seen are sometimes burned

down. The saddest thing of all was to see the hopeful seedlings, many

of them crinkled and bent with the pressure of winter snow, yet bravely

aspiring at the top, helplessly perishing, and young trees, perfect

spires of verdure and naturally immortal, suddenly changed to dead

masts. Yet the sun looked cheerily down the openings in the forest

roof, turning the black smoke to a beautiful brown, as if all was for

the best.

Beneath the smoke-clouds of the suffering forest we again pushed

southward, descending a side-george of the East Fork cañon and climbing

another into new forests and groves not a whit less noble. Brownie, the

meanwhile, had been resting, while I was weary and sleepy with almost

ceaseless wanderings, giving only an hour or two each night or day to

sleep in my log home. Way-making here seemed to become more and more

difficult, “impossible,” in common phrase, for four-legged travelers.

Two or three miles was all the day’s work as far as distance was

concerned. Nevertheless, just before sundown we found a charming camp

ground with plenty of grass, and a forest to study that had felt no

fire for many a year. The camp hollow was evidently a favorite home of

bears. On many of the trees, at a height of six or eight feet, their

autographs were inscribed in strong, free, flowing strokes on the soft

bark where they had stood up like cats to stretch their limbs. Using

both hands, every claw a pen, the handsome curved lines of their

writing take the form of remarkably regular interlacing pointed arches,

producing a truly ornamental effect. I looked and listened, half

expecting to see some of the writers alarmed and withdrawing from the

unwonted disturbance. Brownie also looked and listened, for mules fear

bears instinctively and have a very keen nose for them. When I turned

him loose, instead of going to the best grass, he kept cautiously near

the camp-fire for protection, but was careful not to step on me. The

great starry night passed away in deep peace and the rosy morning

sunbeams were searching the grove ere I woke from a long, blessed

sleep.

The breadth of the Sequoia belt here is about the same as on the north

side of the river, extending, rather thin and scattered in some places,

among the noble pines from near the mains forest belt of the range well

back towards the frosty peaks, where most of the trees are growing on

moraines but little changed as yet.

Two days’ scramble above Bear Hollow I enjoyed an interesting interview

with deer. Soon after sunrise a little company of four came to my camp

in a wild garden imbedded in chaparral, and after much cautious

observation quietly began to eat breakfast with me. Keeping perfectly

still I soon had their confidence, and they came so near I found no

difficulty, while admiring their graceful manners and gestures, in

determining what plants they were eating, thus gaining a far finer

knowledge and sympathy than comes by killing and hunting.

Indian summer gold with scarce a whisper of winter in it was painting

the glad wilderness in richer and yet richer colors as we scrambled

across the South cañon into the basin of the Tule. Here the Big Tree

forests are still more extensive, and furnished abundance of work in

tracing boundaries and gloriously crowned ridges up and down, back and

forth, exploring, studying, admiring, while the great measureless days

passed on and away uncounted. But in the calm of the camp-fire the end

of the season seemed near. Brownie too often brought snow-storms to

mind. He became doubly jaded, though I never rode him, and always left

him in camp to feed and rest while I explored. The invincible bread

business also troubled me again; the last mealy crumbs were consumed,

and grass was becoming scarce even in the roughest rock-piles naturally

inaccessible to sheep. One afternoon, as I gazed over the rolling bossy

Sequoia billows stretching interminably southward, seeking a way and

counting how far I might go without food, a rifle shot rang out sharp

and clear. Marking the direction I pushed gladly on, hoping to find

some hunter who could spare a little food. Within a few hundred rods I

struck the track of a shod horse, Which led to the camp of two Indian

shepherds. One of them was cooking supper when I arrived. Glancing

curiously at me he saw that I was hungry, and gave me some mutton and

bread, and said encouragingly as he pointed to the west, “Putty soon

Indian come, heap speak English.” Toward sundown two thousand sheep

beneath a cloud of dust came streaming through the grand Sequoias to a

meadow below the camp, and presently the English-speaking shepherd came

in, to whom I explained my wants and what I was doing. Like most white

men, he could not conceive how anything other than gold could be the

object of such rambles as mine, and asked repeatedly whether I had

discovered any mines. I tried to make him talk about trees and the wild

animals, but unfortunately he proved to be a tame Indian from the Tule

Reservation, had been to school, claimed to be civilized, and spoke

contemptuously of “wild Indians,” and so of course his inherited

instincts were blurred or lost. The Big Trees, he said, grew far south,

for he had see them in crossing the mountains from Porterville to Lone

Pine. In the morning he kindly gave me a few pounds of flour, and

assured me that I would get plenty more at a sawmill on the South Fork

if I reached it before it was shut down for the season.

Of all the Tule basin forest the section on the North Fork seemed the

finest, surpassing, I think, even the Giant Forest of the Kaweah.

Southward from here, though the width and general continuity of the

belt is well sustained, I thought I could detect a slight falling off

in the height of the trees and in closeness of growth. All the basin

was swept by swarms of hoofed locusts, the southern part over and over

again, until not a leaf within the reach was left on the wettest bogs,

the outer edges of the thorniest chaparral beds, or even on the young

conifers, which unless under the stress of dire famine, sheep never

touch. Of course Brownie suffered, though I made diligent search for

grassy sheep-proof spots. Turning him loose one evening on the side of

a carex bog, he dolefully prospected the desolate neighborhood without

finding anything that even a starving mule could eat. Then, utterly

discouraged, he stole up behind me while I was bent over on my knees

making a fire for tea, and in a pitiful mixture of bray and neigh,

begged for help. It was a mighty touching prayer, and I answered it as

well as I could with half of what was left of a cake made from the last

of the flour given me by the Indians, hastily passing it over my

shoulder, and saying, “Yes, poor fellow, I know, but soon you’ll have

plenty. To-morrow down we go to alfalfa and barley,” speaking to him as

if he were human, as through stress of trouble plainly he was. After

eating his portion of bread he seemed content, for he said no more, but

patiently turned away to gnaw leafless ceanothus stubs. Such clinging,

confiding dependence after all our scrambles and adventures together

was very touching, and I felt conscience-stricken for having led him so

far in so rough and desolate a country. “Man,” says Lord Bacon, “is the

god of the dog.” So, also, he is of the mule and many other dependent

fellow mortals.

Next morning I turned westward, determined to force a way straight to

pasture, letting Sequoia wait. Fortunately ere we had struggled down

through half a mile of chaparral we heard a mill whistle, for which we

gladly made a bee line. At the sawmill we both got a good meal, then

taking the dusty lumber road pursued our way to the lowlands. The

nearest good pasture I counted might be thirty or forty miles away. But

scarcely had we gone ten when I noticed a little log cabin a hundred

yards or so back from the road, and a tall man straight as a pine

standing in front of it observing us as we came plodding down through

the dust. Seeing no sign of grass or hay, I was going past without

stopping, when he shouted, “Travelin’?” Then drawing nearer, “Where

have you come from? I didn’t notice you go up.” I replied I had come

through the woods from the north, looking at the trees. “Oh, then, you

must be John Muir. Halt, you’re tired; come and rest and I’ll cook for

you.” Then I explained that I was tracing the Sequoia belt, that on

account of sheep my mule was starving, and therefore must push on to

the lowlands. “No, no,” he said, “that corral over there is full of hay

and grain. Turn your mule into it. I don’t own it, but the fellow who

does is hauling lumber, and it will be all right. He’s a white man.

Come and rest. How tired you must be! The Big Trees don’t go much

farther south, nohow. I know the country up there, have hunted all over

it. Come and rest, and let your little doggone rat of a mule rest. How

in heavens did you get him across the cañons—roll him? or carry him?

He’s poor, but he’ll get fat, and I’ll give you a horse and go with you

up the mountains, and while you’re looking at the trees I’ll go

hunting. It will be a short job, for the end of the Big Trees is not

far.” Of course I stopped. No true invitation is ever declined. He had

been hungry and tired himself many a time in the Rocky Mountains as

well as in the Sierra. Now he owned a band of cattle and lived alone.

His cabin was about eight by ten feet, the door at one end, a fireplace

at the other, and a bed on one side fastened to the logs. Leading me in

without a word of mean apology, he made me lie down on the bed, then

reached under it, brought forth a sack of apples and advised me to keep

“chawing” at them until he got supper ready. Finer, braver hospitality

I never found in all this good world so often called selfish.

Next day with hearty, easy alacrity the mountaineer procured horses,

prepared and packed provisions, and got everything ready for an early

start the following morning. Well mounted, we pushed rapidly upon the

South Fork of the river and soon after noon were among the giants once

more. On the divide between the Tule and Deer Creek a central camp was

made, and the mountaineer spent his time in deer-hunting, while with

provisions for two or three days I explored the woods, and in

accordance with what I had been told soon reached the southern

extremity of the belt on the South Fork of Deer Creek. To make sure, I

searched the woods a considerable distance south of the last Deer Creek

grove, passed over into the basin of the Kern, and climbed several high

points commanding extensive views over the sugar-pine woods, without

seeing a single Sequoia crown in all the wide expanse to the southward.

On the way back to camp, however, I was greatly interested in a grove I

discovered on the east side of the Kern River divide, opposite the

North Fork of Deer Creek. The height of the pass where the species

crossed over is about 7000 feet, and I heard of still another grove

whose waters drain into the upper Kern opposite the Middle Fork of the

Tule.

It appears, therefore, that though the Sequoia belt is two hundred and

sixty miles long, most of the trees are on a section to the south of

Kings River only about seventy miles in length. But though the area

occupied by the species increases so much to the southward, there is

but little difference in the size of the trees. A diameter of twenty

feet and height of two hundred and seventy-five is perhaps about the

average for anything like mature and favorably situated trees.

Specimens twenty-five feet in diameter are not rare, and a good many

approach a height of three hundred feet. Occasionally one meets a

specimen thirty feet in diameter, and rarely one that is larger. The

majestic stump on Kings River is the largest I saw and measured on the

entire trip. Careful search around the boundaries of the forests and

groves and in the gaps of the belt failed to discover any trace of the

former existence of the species beyond its present limits. On the

contrary, it seems to be slightly extending its boundaries; for the

outstanding stragglers, occasionally met a mile or two from the main

bodies, are young instead of old monumental trees. Ancient ruins and

the ditches and root-bowls the big trunks make in falling were found in

all the groves, but none outside of them. We may therefore conclude

that the area covered by the species has not been diminished during the

last eight or ten thousand years, and probably not at all in

post-glacial times. For admitting that upon those areas supposed to

have been once covered by Sequoia every tree may have fallen, and that

fire and the weather had left not a vestige of them, many of the

ditches made by the fall of the ponderous trunks, weighing five hundred

to nearly a thousand tons, and the bowls made by their up-turned roots

would remain visible for thousands of years after the last remnants of

the trees had vanished. Some of these records would doubtless be

effaced in a comparatively short time by the inwashing of sediments,

but no inconsiderable part of them would remain enduringly engraved on

flat ridge tops, almost wholly free from such action.

In the northern groves, the only ones that at first came under the

observation of students, there are but few seedlings and young trees to

take the places of the old ones. Therefore the species was regarded as

doomed to speedy extinction, as being only an expiring remnant

vanquished in the so-called struggle for life, and shoved into its last

strongholds in moist glens where conditions are exceptionally

favorable. But the majestic continuous forests of the south end of the

belt create a very different impression. Here, as we have seen, no tree

in the forest is more enduringly established. Nevertheless it is

oftentimes vaguely said that the Sierra climate is drying out, and that

this oncoming, constantly increasing drought will of itself surely

extinguish King Sequoia, though sections of wood-rings show that there

has been no appreciable change of climate during the last forty

centuries. Furthermore, that Sequoia can grow and is growing on as dry

ground as any of its neighbors or rivals, we have seen proved over and

over again. “Why, then,” it will be asked, “are the Big Tree groves

always found on well-watered spots?” Simply because Big Trees give rise

to streams. It is a mistake to suppose that the water is the cause of

the groves being there. On the contrary, the groves are the cause of

the water being there. The roots of this immense tree fill the ground,

forming a sponge which hoards the bounty of the clouds and sends it

forth in clear perennial streams instead of allowing it to rush

headlong in short-lived destructive floods. Evaporation is also

checked, and the air kept still in the shady Sequoia depths, while

thirsty robber winds are shut out.

Since, then, it appears that Sequoia can and does grow on as dry ground

as its neighbors and that the greater moisture found with it is an

effect rather than a cause of its presence, the notions as to the

former greater extension of the species and its near approach to

extinction, based on its supposed dependence on greater moisture, are

seen to be erroneous. Indeed, all my observations go to show that in

case of prolonged drought the sugar pines and firs would die before

Sequoia. Again, if the restricted and irregular distribution of the

species be interpreted as the result of the desiccation of the range,

then, instead of increasing in individuals toward the south, where the

rainfall is less, it should diminish.

If, then, its peculiar distribution has not been governed by superior

conditions of soil and moisture, by what has it been governed? Several

years before I made this trip, I noticed that the northern groves were

located on those parts of the Sierra soil-belt that were first laid

bare and opened to preëmption when the ice-sheet began to break up into

individual glaciers. And when I was examining the basin of the San

Joaquin and trying to account for the absence of Sequoia, when every

condition seemed favorable for its growth, it occurred to me that this

remarkable gap in the belt is located in the channel of the great

ancient glacier of the San Joaquin and Kings River basins, which poured

its frozen floods to the plain, fed by the snows that fell on more than

fifty miles of the Summit peaks of the range. Constantly brooding on

the question, I next perceived that the great gap in the belt to the

northward, forty miles wide, between the Stanislaus and Tuolumne

groves, occurs in the channel of the great Stanislaus and Tuolumne

glacier, and that the smaller gap between the Merced and Mariposa

groves occurs in the channel of the smaller Merced glacier. The wider

the ancient glacier, the wider the gap in the Sequoia belt, while the

groves and forests attain their greatest development in the Kaweah and

Tule River basins, just where, owing to topographical conditions, the

region was first cleared and warmed, while protected from the main

ice-rivers, that flowed past to right and left down the Kings and Kern

valleys. In general, where the ground on the belt was first cleared of

ice, there the Sequoia now is, and where at the same elevation and time

the ancient glaciers lingered, there the Sequoia is not. What the other

conditions may have been which enabled the Sequoia to establish itself

upon these oldest and warmest parts of the main soil-belt I cannot say.

I might venture to state, however, that since the Sequoia forests

present a more and more ancient and long established aspect to the

southward, the species was probably distributed from the south toward

the close of the glacial period, before the arrival of other trees.

About this branch of the question, however, there is at present much

fog, but the general relationship we have pointed out between the

distribution of the Big Tree and the ancient glacial system is clear.

And when we bear in mind that all the existing forests of the Sierra

are growing on comparatively fresh moraine soil, and that the range

itself has been recently sculptured and brought to light from beneath

the ice-mantle of the glacial winter, then many lawless mysteries

vanish, and harmonies take their places.

But notwithstanding all the observed phenomena bearing on the

post-glacial history of this colossal tree, point to the conclusion

that it never was more widely distributed on the Sierra since the close

of the glacial epoch; that its present forests are scarcely past prime;

if, indeed, they have reached prime; that the post-glacial day of the

species is probably not half done; yet, when from a wider outlook the

vast antiquity of the genus is considered, and its ancient richness in

species and individuals, comparing our Sierra giant and Sequoia

sempervirens of the coast, the only other living species, with the many

fossil species already discovered, and described by Heer and

Lesquereux, some of which flourished over large areas around the Arctic

Circle, and in Europe and our own territories, during tertiary and

cretaceous times,—then, indeed, it becomes plain that our two surviving

species, restricted to narrow belts within the limits of California,

are mere remnants of the genus both as to species and individuals, and

that they probably are verging to extinction. But the verge of a period

beginning in cretaceous times may have a breadth of tens of thousands

of years, not to mention the possible existence of conditions

calculated to multiply and reëxtend both species and individuals. No

unfavorable change of climate, so far as I can see, no disease, but

only fire and the axe and the ravages of flocks and herds threaten the

existence of these noblest of God’s trees. In Nature’s keeping they are

safe, but through man’s agency destruction is making rapid progress,

while in the work of protection only a beginning has been made. The

Mariposa Grove belongs to and is guarded by the State; the General

Grant and Sequoia National Parks, established ten years ago, are

efficiently guarded by a troop of cavalry under the direction of the

Secretary of the Interior; so also are the small Tuolumne and Merced

groves, which are included in the Yosemite National Park, while a few

scattered patches and fringes, scarce at all protected, though

belonging to the national government, are in the Sierra Forest

Reservation.

Perhaps more than half of all the Big Trees have been sold, and are now

in the hands of speculators and mill men. Even the beautiful little

Calaveras Grove of ninety trees, so historically interesting from its

being the first discovered, is now owned, together with the much larger

South or Stanislaus Grove, by a lumber company.

Far the largest and most important section of protected Big Trees is in

the grand Sequoia National Park, now easily accessible by stage from

Visalia. It contains seven townships and extends across the whole

breadth of the magnificent Kaweah basin. But large as it is, it should

be made much larger. Its natural eastern boundary is the high Sierra,

and the northern and southern boundaries, and the Kings and Kern

rivers, and thus including the sublime scenery on the headwaters of

these rivers and perhaps nine tenths of all the Big Trees in existence.

Private claims cut and blotch both of the Sequoia parks as well as all

the best of the forests, every one of which the government should

gradually extinguish by purchase, as it readily may, for none of these

holdings are of much value to their owners. Thus as far as possible the

grand blunder of selling would be corrected. The value of these forests

in storing and dispensing the bounty of the mountain clouds is

infinitely greater than lumber or sheep. To the dwellers of the plain,

dependent on irrigation, the Big Tree, leaving all its higher uses out

of the count, is a tree of life, a never-failing spring, sending living

water to the lowlands all through the hot, rainless summer. For every

grove cut down a stream is dried up. Therefore, all California is

crying, “Save the trees of the fountains,” nor, judging by the signs of

the times, it is likely that the cry will cease until the salvation of

all that is left of Sequoia gigantea is sure.