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Show Oldest Living Thing There stands in Sequoia National Park in California the oldest living thing in the world, the General Sherman Sher-man tree, more than 5,000 years old. It is the largest of those redwood trees for which California is famous, and is surrounded by many others of almost qual size and age. The General Sherman tree is 280 feet high and 36 and one half feet in diameter diam-eter at its base. The William McKin-ley McKin-ley tree is taller, being 290 feet in height, but only 28 feet in diameter. The Abraham Lincoln tree is 270 feet high and 31 feet in diameter. Some of these trees were already forest giants, ten centuries old, before be-fore Abraham fared forth from his native Ur of the Chaldees to found the VIebrew nation. They had withstood ;he storms of thirty centuries before the birth of Christ. Yet they still r.tand in sublime majesty, living grow-ng grow-ng things, and will live and grow lor many centuries "to come. Survivors from the dawn of civilization, civili-zation, awe-inspiring in their stately grandure, they seem to hold within their massive, trunks the mysterious secrets of antiquity. If one would gain a better realization of how brief is the span of human life, let him consider the General Sherman tree, and contemplate that two hundred hund-red generations of men have appeared and passed from earth's stage since the soil was broken by its first tiny shoot. |