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Show SI C Hv 1 j It; -t V? , A I i j - 3 ' i h ' , - - , il 4 , fit. xtZ - - h f ' :. . :.i-:.:JlA.5f;,'s -...j L Among the Big Trees in Sequoia National Park. Prepared bv National Geographic Society. Washington. D. C. WNU Service. THINK of an ant crawling on the ground through a vast cornfield, looking up at the tall stalks. To the ant the cornstalks are as high as the California Big Tree3 are to a man gazing at their distant dis-tant tops. But it is their astonishing age, as well as their size and beauty, which fills the soul of puny man with awe and reverence for the Creator. Cre-ator. Big Trees, stout and healthy today, to-day, were centuries old when Christ was born. Men call them "the oldest old-est living things." So nearly Indestructible Inde-structible are they that some naked, fire-scorched trunks still stand, though dead before America was discovered ; others, whicb fell centuries cen-turies ago, remain sound and solid inside. Such vitality has the sequoia se-quoia that when felled its branches do not wither for years. One giant crashed In 1926. In 1031 Its foliage was fresh and green. They link us with the past. Their sequoia forbears grew here when the world was younger, when reptiles rep-tiles grew to enormous size. Such mammoths as the dinosaur, unable to adjust themselves to climatic and other changes, faded from the earth ; but the sequoia family endured en-dured and saw the rise of the mammals. mam-mals. Yet today, when you walk beneath these towering tree giants, you feel that the deer and the squirrel squir-rel hardly fit into a scene set for the brontosaurus and the pterodactyl. ptero-dactyl. Big Trees and Redwoods Differ. Some people confuse California's Redwoods with Its so-called "Big : Trees." Both are "big" and both ! are of the genus Sequoia ; both have pink or red wood and both are trees of the largest size. But they are two species, distinct in habitat, in bark, foliage and in reproduction. re-production. The Coast Redwood, or Sequoia sempervirens, is found only near the coast or within the belt of sea fogs, and extends from southern Oregon, down to Monterey county, in California. The larger species of the California Cali-fornia Big Tree, or Sequoia gigan-tea, gigan-tea, is confined to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, between 4,000 and S.fiOO feet elevation, from Placer county, in the north, to Tulare Tu-lare county, in the south, and is much more abundant in the south than in the north. The Coast Redwood forms an almost al-most continuous forest in which it is the dominant stand; the Big Trees grow in scattered groves, 71 in all, interspersed among the heavier heav-ier stands of white fir, sugar pine, and other trees. Survived Ice and Fire. Ages before man came to chop these trees for his use, ice and fire were fierce foes. Again and again moving glaciers mowed them down glaciers whose icy fingers stretched down mountain canyons to freeze all animal and plant life. Whether In warm and sheltered spots a few trees remained, or whether only seeds survived, can probably never be known ; but slowly slow-ly the cold hands relaxed and the forests returned. The fact that the Big Trees are more abundant and larger in the southern part of their range indicates that there the effects of the glacier were less severe. se-vere. With the passing of the Age of Ice. the struggles of the sequoias had only begun. Fires followed the ordeal of Ice. The abundant Tains ceased, and lour:, dry summers rendered the forests tinderlike, ready to lie Ignited by lightning or by brands tossed by Indians to drive out game or clear land for forage. There Is scarcely a mature sequoia se-quoia that does not show the effects of nt least one fire. Every 20 or "0 years flames swept through the forest, sometimes licking hungrily, but with little effect, at the thick, ashestos-like bark : again, where a litter of boughs and fallen logs was piled up against a Big Tree, the fire burned fiercely enough to penetrate the outer cover and into the heart. That is why the great black caverns cav-erns In the living sequoias are almost al-most always found on the upper side of those standing on a slope. Careful inspection of a Big Tree, even one with an unbroken front of new hark, usually shows unmistakable unmis-takable traces of many fires. Often an arrow-shaped scar runs from the base a hundred feet or more toward to-ward the crown. Such blemishes, covered by new bark, were caused by fire long before the discovery of America. For centuries the tree grew new bark, at the rate of half an inch or less a year, uutil finally the wound was healed. Tree torches burning in the Sierra Nevada might have signalized signal-ized every event in recorded human history, from the building of the Pyramids to our own Civil war. White Men Slow to Find Them. No doubt the Coast Redwoods were seen by the first Europeans to visit our Pacific coast, yet for more than two centuries after the visit of Sir Francis Drake, in 1570, white men roamed up and down California apparently without climbing climb-ing far enough up the high Sierras to find the Big Trees. The Indians knew them, of course. In summer they camped among them and left potholes in granite rocks where they ground acorn meal. Even now the Identity of the first white men to gaze on the Big Trees of the Sierras is in doubt. It may have been some member of the Joseph R. Walker expedition of IS33. One Zenas Leonard, clerk of the Walker party, recorded : "In the last two days' traveling we have found some trees of the Redwood species incredibly large, some of them which would measure from 16 to IS fathoms (96 to 10S feet) around the trunk at the height of a man's head from the ground." That group of Big Trees, now known as the Calaveras North Grove, was, however, the first of these sequoias to become well known. In the spring of 1S52 A. T. Dowd, a miner of Murphy's Camp, in the historic Mother Lode district, followed fol-lowed a wounded bear into the sequoias. se-quoias. He came running back to his companions and excitedly dragged them with him to see "the largest bear In California." What he showed them was a Big Tree probably the one which afterward was felled and a dance hall built on top of it. John Bidwell, a member of the first immigrant party to enter California Cal-ifornia by the .overland route, stated that he saw the Calaveras Big Trees in 1S4 ; but Dowd Is popularly given credit as the discoverer of the Sequoia gigantea. In 1S57 Galen Clark discovered the Mariposa, or Wawoha, Grove in what is now the Tosemite National park. The following year Hale D. Tharp, a pioneer of Three Rivers, in Tulare county, was led up the Middle Fork of the Keweah river by Yokut Indians, and on the grassy slopes beneath Moro Rock to the plateau where grows the noble forest for-est of the Sequoia gigantea, the Giant Gi-ant Forest, In what Is now Sequoia National park. "General Sherman" the Biggest. Here, in Sequoia National park, stands that hoary veteran of all Big Trees, the "General Sherman," found and named by James Wolverton In 1S79. Many other trees, including Redwoods, Douglas firs, and the Australian eucalyptus, are taller; but no other, so far as one knows, has its bulk. Its greatest base diameter di-ameter is 36.o feet and its trunk contains 000,120 board feet of lumber. lum-ber. You can imagine Its size when told that a train of 30 railway cars would be required to haul its trunk alone. One limb, 130 feet above the ground, is nearly seven feet thick. Sawed into hoards, the tree would build about 40 five-room houses ! To save some of these trees, the Sequoia National park was created in 1S90. and for years patrnled each summer by United States cavalry. Private individuals, however, still owned the finest parts of the sequoia se-quoia forests and had, of course, a perfect right to cut them down for lumber. To avoid this, the late Stephen T. Mather, as director of the National Park service, asked congress for funds with which to buy and save more of the BigTreej. An appropriation was made, but it was insullicicnt. Then aid was asked of the National Na-tional Geographic society. Immediately, Imme-diately, from its own funds and with voluntary contributions from Individual Indi-vidual members. It subscribed sufficient suffi-cient money to purchase the lands and Big Trees desired. In all. the society bought and gave to the United Slates, a total of 1,016 acres at a cost of $:6,3.",0. |