Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1877 — CALIFORNIA BIG TREES. [ARTICLE]

CALIFORNIA BIG TREES.

Something More About the Monsters ol the Forest. [From the San Francisco (Cal.) Call.] Six days’ delightful though somewhat fatiguing travel found us in a board road leading from Visalia and the adjacent valleys to the saw mills. These mills are situated a few miles apart, at an elevation of between 5,000 and 6,000 feet above sea-level, and uppn the borders of one of the largest and finest groves of seqnoise in California. In this section of the country, for miles in extent, these trees form a large part of the general forests. Perhaps at some remote period in the past they were even more numerous than now, possibly extending over other portions of this continent. At least, there are evidences that favor the supposition that they aire degenerating, aiql perhaps future ages will simply know them as relics of the past. About six miles from Waggys mill, not far from the bank of King’s river, is a grove which contains at least 10,000 of these arborial giants, and it lias been estimated that an area of six square miles contains about 350,000,000 feet of timber, lumber measurement. Three iniles from Waggy’s mill stands a noble specimen of the sequoia;, one of the largest of these vegetable leviathans. It is 240 feet in height, and measures 97 feet ip circumference six feet above tlio ground. Five feet higher up its circumference is 73 feet. Above this point the tree is untouched by fire, but the lower part boars traces of this destroyer. The symmetry and beauty of thousands of these trees have been marred by its ruthless hand. About 300 yards from this point lies a monstrous trunk, hollow throughout its length, which we found, by measurement, to be 125 feet, the limbs and upper portion of the tree having long since been destroyed by fire. So enormous is this hollow trunk that a horseman, entering at one end, can traverse its whole length and emerge at the other. The dimensions of the largest cavity, or main chamber,of tiie interior (about the middle of the log) are 12 feet iu height and about tlie same iu width for a length of 62 feet. How long this giant monarch of the woods has lain prostrate, with no epitaph to mark his history, it is not easy to determine. Perhaps for centuries his brethren of tho forest have been chanting in mournful cadences a requiem for the departed. Another tree, standing southwest of this is 78 feet in circumference 6 feet above the ground, and only 8 feet less in girth 9 feet higher up. One mile from Waggy’s mill stands a charred stump 80 feet high, which is 94 feet in circumference 6 feet above the ground. As the fire has destroyed the bark and sop, and eaten into the woody fiber of the tree, it is difficult to say how large the tree was originally, but it must have been enormous. We cut through the burnt crust to ascertain the fineness of the annual rings. We found them to be exceedingly numerouslind fine, showing that the tree, at the time it was burned, w r as at least a few thousand years old. We also counted the rings on several stumps from which" logs had been sawed, one of them giving 1,130 rings, thus showing the tree to have been as many years old. We measured about 30 trees, not one of which was less than 25 feet in diameter. The trunks of 4 of such trees, converted into mils, would fence in 4 square miles, or 2,500 acres of laud.