orest," which has fallen
perhaps a century or more, exhibits the grandest dimensions of any
known tree. By measuring its remains, and allowing for the probable
thickness of the bark, it seems to have been about thirty-five feet
diameter near the ground, at ninety feet up fifteen feet, and even at
a height of two hundred and seventy feet, it was nine feet in
diameter. It is within the hollow trunk of this tree that a man on
horse-back can ride--both man and horse being rather small; but the
dimensions undoubtedly show that it was considerably larger than the
"Pavilion tree," and that it carried its huge dimensions to a greater
altitude; and although this does not prove it to have been much
taller, yet it was in all probability more than four hundred feet in
height.

[Illustration]

Very absurd statements are made to visitors as to the antiquity of
these trees, three or four thousand years being usually given as their
age. This is founded on the fact that while many of the large Sequoias
are greatly damaged by fire, the large pines and firs around them are
quite uninjured. As many of these pines are assumed to be near a
thousand years old, the epoch of the "great fire" is supposed to be
earlier still, and as the Sequoias have not outgrown the fire-scars in
all that time, they are supposed to have then arrived at their full
growth. But the simple explanation of these trees alone having
suffered so much from fire is, that their bark is unusually thick,
dry, soft, and fibrous, and it thus catches fire more easily and
burns more readily and for a longer time than that of the other
coniferae. Forest fires occur continually, and the visible damage done
to these trees has probably all occurred in the present century.
Professor C.B. Bradley, of the University of California, has carefully
counted the rings of annual growth on the stump of the "Pavilion
tree," and found them to be twelve hundred and forty; and after
considering all that has been alleged as to the uncertainty of this
mode of estimating the age of a tree, he believes that in the climate
of California, in the zone of altitude where these trees grow, the
seasons of growth and repose are so strongly marked that the number of
annual rings gives an accurate result.

Other points that have been studied by Professor Bradley are, the
reason why there are so few young trees in the groves, and what is the
cause of the destruction of the old trees. To take the last point
f