the greater Sequoias by numerals. However, the undesirability of such a
method is at once apparent when pressed into service. Such featureless
monotony as “Number 15, fine, sound tree; Number 304, largest and
oldest tree in the Grove; Number 262, half-burned at the base,” and the
like (as Whitney recites in his _Yosemite Guide Book_) is produced.
Obviously, the trees must be individualized by names. But why attach
a name such as Andy Johnson to a tree that saw the light of day when
Pompeii was destroyed? Affixing names of such temporary notable
figures of the day to a Sequoia savors almost of ticketing the name
for an “adventitious immortality.” At any rate, whether it be the tree
or the man so honored, probably either would live as long in memory
without the connection. If a Sequoia must be labeled, let some striking
attribute of the tree itself be the governing factor in selecting the
designation.
Foremost of the Sequoias in the Mariposa Grove is the Grizzly Giant.
It is among the most massive-stemmed trees of the world and ranks
with the oldest inhabitants of the earth. Yet a mere statement of
its size little serves to convey an adequate impression of the tree.
Measurements are, after all, only relative criteria, at best. As
well give the tailor’s measurements of Lincoln as an index of his
greatness as to try to convey the fascinating immensity of this tree by
saying that it is 204 feet high and 31 feet in diameter at the ground.
Its stockiness is truly remarkable. Its sturdy trunk tapers upward so
slightly to the first great limb—reputed to be six feet in diameter;
the size of a mature pine—that the diametric variance is almost
imperceptible. Nor is its base excessively expanded. No more, really,
than is necessary for strength. In fact, it seems almost too slight an
expansion to serve as a diagonal brace or instep for the support of
such a gigantic structure upon the earth. Consequently, the diametric
measurement of the Grizzly Giant at the ground justly signifies its
enormous bulk. Yet even this cannot be accurately obtained for its
base has been so badly gnawed by flames that a true measurement is not
possible.
[Illustration: THE CABIN AND ITS MAGNIFICENT SETTING
MARIPOSA GROVE Photo by H. S. Hoyt]
Several Sequoias press closely upon the Grizzly Giant in girth. The
Lafayette Tree is easily its counterpart, having a ground diameter of
29.4 feet. But in this case the swell at the base is excessive and
the trunk itself has less than two-thirds the diameter of the Grizzly
Giant. The Columbia Tree even exceeded the Grizzly Giant in girth and
must have measured at least 110 feet in circumference before fire
claimed half its base. Viewed from the Cabin it is extremely imposing
and almost as grand and picturesque in its old age as the Grizzly
Giant. Standing on a steep slope, its stem appears to be fully as
massive as that of the patriarch of the Grove, while its great elbowed
limbs and its high top, “bald with dry antiquity” and scarred with
tokens of old wars, vest it with a venerable charm. However, a scramble
through the dense brush on the up-hill side reveals a large burnt
hollow in which a dozen persons could comfortably stand. If sawed
close to the ground its stump would be shaped like a crescent moon. A
tape stretched around it and across its concave surface would record
a diameter of 25.6 feet. The Washington Tree is a foot less in girth
at the ground than the Grizzly Giant, yet measured 10 feet above the
ground its trunk is a few inches larger in diameter, being 20.7 feet.
Nevertheless, it tapers far more and is not nearly so imposing in its
pillar-like stateliness as the tree that presides over the Mariposa
Grove.
After all, mere figures have their limitations. They are not expressive
of Sequoian size. This may be due to the columnar character of the
Sequoia’s trunk. It rises smooth and unbroken by protuberance of any
kind for a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet. Vastness is so artfully
given emphasis and completeness that the whole is not a monstrosity.
Symmetry is so perfectly achieved that there is no straining for
enormity. What would be a commanding height for a building on a flat
level surface appears not out of the ordinary in the Sequoia. This is
perhaps why a first glimpse of the Sequoia is sometimes disappointing.
Examination and meditation are necessary before the grandeur of the
tree “grows” upon the observer. Then he is filled with a feeling of awe
that no grandeur of architectural pile could possibly inspire.
The Mariposa Grove possesses the tallest of the Sierra Sequoias, the
Mark Twain Tree. This magnificent specimen lifts its proud head 331
feet into the sky. Thus, it would reach nearly two-thirds of the
way up the lofty Washington Monument and would over-top the dome of
the Nation’s Capitol. Yet those who gaze upon it for the first time
depart doubting. Seeing is not believing. Its appearance is anything
but that of the tallest Giant Sequoia on the globe. Nevertheless, the
measurement is accurate and authentic and must stand.[2]
Other Sequoias rank close seconds to the Mark Twain Tree in height. The
Captain A. E. Wood, with a height of 310 feet, is not far behind. The
Columbia, 294 feet high, the Nevada, 287 feet, and the Georgia, 270
feet, are all exceptional trees. In fact, a score of others could be
enumerated before the imperial Queen of the Forest would be reached,
whose 219 feet of trunkage place it within the average height of the
Giant Sequoia.
Most perfectly formed of the Sequoias of the Grove is the Alabama
Tree. The pioneers called it the “Pillar of the Temple.” It has
developed under full sunlight and is magnificently balanced in all
its proportions. Truly, it is one of the finest examples of “Nature’s
forest masterpieces,” as John Muir was wont to designate the Sequoia.
Fit to support any temple, it stands marvelously perfect, unmarred
by fire, untouched by disease, undisturbed by the violence of the
elements. Centuries have passed over it, centuries that have noted many
disasters in the march of civilization, and yet it has remained free
from accident. Its heroic stem is as roundly perfect and as regularly
tapered as though turned in a lathe. Unbroken by a limb upwards of
nearly two hundred feet, with an instep that adjusts itself to the
mass it supports with elegant finish, it discloses a trunk with deeply
and widely furrowed ridges not unlike a pillar that Phidias might
have fashioned. But no pillar ever conceived by man bore a tint more
ravishing or a luster more superb than this. When spotted with shifting
patches of golden sunlight, its cinnamon-reddish trunk would put to
shame the richest colorings of Numidian marble.
Nor has any pillar of stone ever supported a more exquisite structure
than the crown of this Sequoia. Possessed of almost an artificial
finish, it is a gracefully trimmed, singularly perfect dome. The
supports of this crown leave the trunk in a woody wilderness of huge
arms, wild in ungovernable expression, knotted and confused as those of
giants who toss their arms in anguish. These great limbs, regal-hued
in rose and purple, dissolve themselves abruptly into masses of stumpy
branchlets which in turn spray out into a soft film of deep blue-green
foliage. Indeed, it is impossible to distinguish against the skyline
exactly where this arch described by the foliage ends and where sky
begins. So subtile are the edges of this crown that they appear to melt
away into the heavens. Yet more wonderful is the flame-like semi-halo
visible along the crest of this tree just after a rain. Ruskin noticed
this light on pine trees. “The whole outer crown,” he states, “becomes
a thing of light, dazzling as the sun itself, for every minutest needle
is bedewed and carries a diamond, as if living among the clouds it had
caught a part of their glory.”
Never has Nature presented a more striking contrast, a more
extraordinary comparison than in the trunk and foliage of the Sequoia.
They are at the opposite ends of the scale. One presents the utmost
massiveness of outline; the other the most delicate curvature and
grace. The trunk has qualities of permanence, classic mightiness,
enduring power, and the colossal dimensions that go with two thousand
years of age; the foliage possesses qualities of fleetness, ephemeral
frailty, fragile beauty, and the airy nothingness of a dream.
Nearly all the other Sequoias of the Grove have had their perfection
marred by three agents of destruction—time, fire, and man. The
remarkable manner in which they have triumphed over their destroyers
makes them unique among trees. Seared, scarred, and mutilated all
their lives, they have carried on in their great, patient, rugged
fashion. Accidents seem unable to disturb more than momentarily their
peaceful way. Calamities that would vanquish other trees only serve
to quicken their hardy, tenacious growth. Almost invincible, they
appear to know neither despair nor defeat. Even when overthrown by the
combined strength of the elements of heaven and earth, though uprooted
and prostrate, they refuse to perish utterly. Would that man had the
stamina of the Sequoia.
Time has not laid a heavy hand on the Sequoia. On all living things it
leaves its trace. But never within the compass of human reckoning has
time alone been able to take off a Sequoia. Fire must first prepare the
way by eating through the center of gravity of its trunk. Then, and
only then, are the tempests able to overthrow it. This is because the
scanty foliage of the tree never makes for top-heaviness. One of the
most interesting habits of the Sequoia is the pruning of its own top.
Unnecessary limbs are rarely retained. Not infrequently in Sequoian
groves when there is neither wind nor other apparent cause, a crash in
the night is heard and at dawn the ruins of a limb are found beneath
one of the Giants. Evidently the Sequoia knows that a tree which
carries its crown two hundred and fifty feet above its base cannot
wrestle with the fury of the winds under full sail. Consequently, it is
only after fire has deflected one of these columns from its plumbline
and when the mass of earth about its roots has been softened by rain or
snow, that the gales succeed in prostrating the Sequoia.
The Fallen Monarch and the Fallen Giant are the two most noted of this
category in the Mariposa Grove. The former, when standing in the full
glory of prime, must have been the equal of the largest of the lordly
monarchs of today. Its bark gone, its sap-wood decayed, its base badly
fire-scarred, it still measures over 85 feet in circumference. But
for all its great size, its refusal to perish is even more wonderful.
It is not a mouldering mass which tourists can idly kick about, but a
solid trunk whose wood is as firm and sound as on the day the tree fell
to earth. How long the bleached ruin of a tree may have lain on the
forest floor is mere conjecture. How old this monarch was before its
fall is an equally fascinating speculation. It may be that the circling
sun looked down upon it as a graceful sapling when Cheops raised
the Pyramids on the plains of Gizeh. Nor are these vast, unmeaning,
sepulchral piles erected to the great who exhausted the splendor of
Egypt in their building, apparently more enduring than this decumbent
monarch.
The other, the Fallen Giant, fell during a storm in the early
seventies. Its mammoth prone trunk may be seen from the Cabin porch
today. Since its fall a troop of cavalry have been lined up in
formation upon it and a coach-and-four has been driven along its trunk.
Living, it stood among the foremost of the Grove. It was known as the
Andy Johnson Tree and was one of the famous giants of pioneer days. Now
all its glories have shrunken into a “curiosity,” for tourists take a
special delight in clambering up and stamping upon its grey surface to
test the soundness of its wood.
But the destructive work of time as a whole has been of less
consequence than that of fire. Of all the tragedies and great passions
of the elements that cross the silent life of a Sequoia, none can
compare with the sinister work of this forest fiend. Fire alone
seems able to inflict irreparable wounds, and nothing else, not even
disease, apparently ever injures the heart of a Sequoia. The immense
black charrings on many of the noble trees of the Grove bear silent
testimony to great conflagrations of the past. Yet, in a sense, the
Sequoia triumphs even over this arch enemy. Fires that totally destroy
its neighbors only assail its vitality after many and repeated attacks.
Enormous areas of its base may be burned and yet the tree will live on.
So erratic, indeed, may some of these injuries become that daylight
is let through the tree. Even if it be advanced in age, it will still
continue to put forth green leaves, persisting in a really remarkable
manner in the face of misfortune to which a lesser tree would
immediately succumb.
[Illustration: TELESCOPE TREE
Light may be seen through this tree, hollowed by fire.
MARIPOSA GROVE Photo by H. S. Hoyt]
The Haverford, the Stable, and the Hermit’s Cabin are notable for
the large fire-created cavities of their bases. The Haverford has
had its broad base entirely hollowed out by flames which have burned
a three-chambered archway through the tree across two spurs, the
distance of which is 35 feet, and, transversely, 33 feet. Garrulous
stage-drivers of early days, whose creative faculties at times spurred
them on to daring mendacities, called the Haverford the “Tree of
Refuge” and alluded to the fact that 30 horses found safety and shelter
within its hollow trunk during a severe storm. When it is determined,
however, with certainty that but half this number of horses really were
sheltered, the size of this cavern in the base of a living tree is
still sufficiently striking.
The Stable Tree has a capacious hollow in its base almost forming a
room eight by twelve feet. It was because “Old Cunningham” manufactured
his quaint stock of curios in the hollow of this tree that it gained
the fitting appellation of the “Old Curiosity Shop.” Later when the
soldiers of the Government patrolled the Grove they tied their mounts
within this room-like hollow—a practice which eventually caused it to
be known as the Stable Tree.
The Hermit’s Cabin is a charcoal-lined circular chamber with a very
fine domed ceiling. It affords a spacious room in which some denizen
of the mountains could dwell in princely comfort and contentment. Wild
beasts may have made it their forest lair in the past, and the Indian
may have flaked his arrowheads within it while waiting for a storm to
pass. It is not altogether improbable that some failing miner may have
used it for his hermitage, seeking solace in the vast, silent bowers of
shade about him and submerging himself in the immense peacefulness of
the Grove—wandering, rambling at will, pausing to drink at a spring,
or anon to examine a flower, or to warm himself in the sun, bewildered
yet charmed by the fascination of it all; a dreamer seeming to hear the
laughter and voices of dear ones at home, but in reality listening to
the songs of birds.
But there are Sequoias even more fire-tortured than these. The
Telescope Tree is an erect, burnt-out, tubular trunk 220 feet high. Its
heartwood is completely gone. Tourists may enter it and look up through
its chimney-like cylinder to the blue sky above. Internally, its
appearance is that of a tree from which life has gone forever, while
externally it appears to be a perfectly sound tree. Of course, its top
is a ruin. But one up-turned limb remains. This abounds in the spirit
of intense life, for its bossy patches of deep blue-green foliage still
bear cones whose seeds perpetuate the endless cycle of the royal race.
Thus this tree—hardly more than a mere barkcovered shell, clings to
life with a Roman tenacity—the epitome of vitality.
Pluto’s Chimney is yet more of a ruin. It is nothing but a huge old
stub of a tree, blackened and burned inside and out. So forbidding
and fearsome is its interior aspect that some call it the “Devil’s
Dungeon.” But for all its dismal repellence, it, too, has its story to
tell. Like a battle-scarred veteran, its blackened body tells mutely
of a mighty struggle bravely waged against the forest fiend. The sun
lights its gloomy circular vault and sheds a troop of bright sunbeams
upon its dead walls as though to bless them and warm them back to life.
Even winter’s clouds sift snow in its burnt-out shell as though to cool
its fire-ravaged sides.
Yet another of these enormous charcoal-lined cylinders lies prostrate
not far away. Early travelers were accustomed to pursue each other
through it on horseback. But this pastime was put to an abrupt end by
a nearby Sequoia falling across it and breaking in the roof. Since
then spring floods have deposited considerable quantities of sediment,
lessening its diameter, so that today a man can just walk erect through
it. Still other similar fragments, the monuments of departed monarchs
of other centuries, dot the forest floor. To search these out is a
pleasure worth the climbing of a mountain to enjoy. Through ragged
knot-hole openings charming and enchanting glimpses of the forest may
be obtained. Seemingly, all that is unattractive is hidden from view
and the beauties of the picture can be contemplated at leisure.
Far greater than the destructive work of time is that of man. Against
his double-bitted axe the Sequoia is completely powerless. Ironically
enough, the larger and more remarkable the tree the more certain
and swift its doom. The rarity of the species is no bar against its
destruction. Indeed, man seems even eager to barter this most priceless
heritage for a handful of yellow gold. Wherever greed has had free rein
the Sequoia has been lumbered. For the past fifty years cuttings in
privately owned holdings of Sequoian tracts have continued unchecked.
The axe has removed a large part of the Sequoias in the Redwood
Mountain, Merced, and Tule River regions, and the sawmill is still at
its work of destruction in the magnificent forests of the Kings and
Kaweah River basins. “Earlier cutting,” states Sudworth, “took only a
part of this timber, but the later operations have removed practically
every tree.”
Has man no regard for the past—no sentiment of conservation for the
future? How can he trace the arduous survival of the Sequoia through
geological ages without acquiring a peculiar admiration and love for
it? How can he look upon such a living monument which connects the past
with the present and blink at its intellectual and aesthetic value?
When the Germans bombarded Rheims in 1914 and Turkish cannon demolished
the Parthenon of Athens in 1687, all lovers of architecture and the
beautiful stamped such acts as barbarism. But the rose window of Rheims
and the colonades of the Parthenon _can_ be restored. They were merely
man-made. Living things, however, once destroyed are forever lost to
the world. When the axe destroys a Sequoian grove it is irrevocably
gone, for, after all, “only God can make a tree.”
Were the commercial value of the Sequoia in any manner adequate to
its monumental value, all this vilifying would be but simon-pure
sentimentality. Could the wood of the Sequoia be used as girders and
columns in great halls and solemn cathedrals, its commercial use would
somewhat befit the nobility and heroic proportions of the tree. But it
is otherwise. The light, soft, brittle wood of the Big Tree unfits it
for supporting ponderous roofs and massive balconies. No wise architect
would use it in this manner. In fact, nearly every wood grown on the
American Continent is superior to the Big Tree in the weight it will
sustain.
Few other trees in their lumbering exceed the Giant Sequoia in
wastefulness. More lumber can be obtained from ash or maple than from
the Sequoia of the Sierra. This is due to the enormous size of the tree
and the brittle character of its wood. When a falling Sequoia strikes
the ground with the force of many thousands of tons, any inequality
of the earth’s surface suffices to break its trunk. Blasting must
then be employed to reduce the great pieces to sizeable dimensions
for handling. This results in fragments of all sorts unsuited for
commercial use, to say nothing of the great loss of that which is
cracked and splintered beyond all hope of salvage. “No where on the
face of the globe,” says Dudley, “can there be found more wasteful
lumbering. One-half to even three-fourths or seven-eighths of the great
trunks of the Sequoias of the Converse Basin (near the Kings River)
were broken and rent beyond use in falling.” In substance, breakage is
so great that the major portion of the wood is suitable only for grape
stakes and fence posts and the like. If no other tree save the Sequoia
could furnish these products, the destruction of its forests might be
justifiable. Hence, no other conclusion can be reached than that the
lumbering of the Sequoia is wholly unnecessary and deserving of the
severest condemnation.[3]
Yet more must be told. Much vandalism has been committed on the Sequoia
by man. Early accounts are filled with these “botanical tragedies”
which were perpetrated whenever the venture appeared profitable. For
instance, in 1878, a butchered specimen of the Giant Sequoia was
shipped from Tulare City to San Francisco for exhibition purposes and
gain. It was the largest Sequoia the vandals could find in the forest.
Fourteen feet above the ground they made the first cut and for twelve
days nine men disturbed the age-old peace of the place with the ring
of axes and the rasp of saws. Finally, the monarch that had defied the
passions of the elements for centuries fell, conquered by the blade.
Then the inside of the stump, which was 21 feet in diameter, was hewn
out to within a dozen inches or so of the foot-thick bark and the
hollow shell sawed into fifteen gigantic slabs. With indefatiguable
energy, a road six miles in length was constructed to haul these out of
the forest. Each slab made a load for eight horses, while two railroad
cars were required to transport them all. The so-called “curiosity”
was set up on Market Street as the largest tree yet discovered in
California. Strangely enough, this act elicited hardly a whisper of
indignation or a word of protest from Californians who seemed to regard
the exhibit as a “real novelty.”
The Calaveras Grove suffered grievously at the outset from such
barbaric acts. Two of its most imposing trees were destroyed. One of
the grandest trees in the Grove was bored down with pump-augers by five
men in twenty-two days in order to make a dancing floor—butchered, in
other words, to make an American holiday. Its great trunk, 302 feet
in height and 96 feet in circumference, was hacked and chopped by the
usual “pilgrims” desirous of securing specimens of their visit. The
other, the “Mother of the Forest,” was stripped of its bark in 1854
to a height of 116 feet—veritably “skinned alive” so that its bark
could be sent to the Crystal Palace in England, where the curious of
Europe could see how large and fine California’s Big Trees really were.
Naturally enough, this act brought death to the tree. “For years,”
Hutchings remarks, “its majestic form perpetually taunted the belittled
and sordid spirits that were the authors of her ruin. Yet the elements
sympathized with her unmerited disgrace and attempted to hasten her
dismemberment to cover the wrong.” In the early part of the present
century a fire almost completed the work. Now but a great blackened
trunk remains with two disfigured limbs bent upward like human arms as
if to say, “Forgive them, for only in darkness does vandalism flourish.”
Fortunately, the Mariposa giants have escaped all this ignominy.
The serenity of the grove has been unbroken by the death chant of a
Sequoia. It has never echoed to the measured chopping of the axe, the
droning swish of saws, the hoarse call of teamsters, the clanking of
irons, or the shrill whistle of the donkey-engine. The sawmill has
eaten its destroying way all around its boundaries, leaving desolation
in its wake. But the Mariposa Grove has been spared this fate. A more
noble use has been found for it.
[Illustration: WAWONA TREE
The curious of the world have passed through this Sequoia for half a
century
MARIPOSA GROVE Photo by H. S. Hoyt]