The giant sequoia

THE Mariposa Grove belongs in the category of the world’s impressive wonders. It presents the most remarkable exhibition of the Sequoias growing between the American and the Kings Rivers and displays Nature’s finest handiwork on the fraternity of the king of all trees. It contains the essence of the most imposing qualities of the Sequoia and is unlike any other grove in its very compactness. Concentrated in its small extent are trees in every phase of development from nurseries of tender seedlings obtaining their feeble hold on life and groups of graceful saplings not half arrived at the maturity of treehood, and just disclosing their impatience to be kings, to venerable patriarchs that are numbered foremost in the world of living things—giants so freighted with age that they exemplify Doctor Johnson’s famous metaphor, “and panting Time toiled after him in vain.”

The Mariposa Grove is superior to other Sequoian tracts in its accessibility, lying as it does in a shallow, crater-like depression near the top of a forested ridge at an elevation of 6,000 feet above the sea and a distance of sixteen miles as the crow flies from the Village in Yosemite Valley. This ridge, upon which the Grove is situated, runs in an easterly direction between Big Creek and the South Fork of the Merced, having as its culmination Mt. Raymond, a rocky promontory upon which the snow lingers even in July.

The Grove is approachable over the Wawona Road which winds upward along the south rim of Yosemite Valley. After passing southward in a meandering course through twenty-seven miles of Park forest, the road drops to Wawona from where it again ascends 1,500 feet within eight miles before reaching the portals of the Mariposa Grove. Once within the Grove, but a comparatively brief period of time is required in which to review its salient features. With little effort it may be completely explored and studied. So harmoniously are its wonder trees disposed within the utmost smallest space that all of them may be viewed from a passing vehicle. In fact, even the most cursory journey through the Mariposa Grove will suffice to give an impression of the singular, solemn dignity of the Sequoia.

Possibly much of the world-wide fame of this Grove is due to the fact that it has been brought the nearest to civilization of the several Big Tree groves. Yet interest in it should not spring merely from such a consideration, for it lies in happy proximity to the grandeur of Yosemite’s cliffs and domes. Indeed, it is as distinctive a feature of Yosemite National Park as the Valley itself. Time was when the importance of the Mariposa Grove was little if at all recognized. In the last decades of the nineteenth century the Calaveras Grove held the center of the stage. The latter was then the most accessible. Because of this it became the Mecca of naturalists and celebrities of the day who made pilgrimages across the continent in order to visit it. Therefore, the Calaveras giants loom large in the earlier literature of the Sequoia. But with the passing of the stagecoach and the hitching post—with the coming of the “winged wheels” and the “iron horse,” the Mariposa Grove ceased to bloom unseen. Instead of the Calaveras Grove it became the more easily reached. Inevitably the pendulum of popularity swung toward it and yearly the tide of travel that flows its way increases.

The tendency to wander into the wilderness that obtains in these feverish times is advancing the popularity of the Mariposa Grove. Mankind is coming more and more into sympathetic contact with Nature. Yearly thousands of over-civilized people are discovering that nothing so renews the health of the body, so refines the mind, so affords a margin of leisure for the soul, or so has the power to quiet the “restless pulse of care” as communion with Nature. They are discovering that real recreation and enjoyment are not found in crowded cities or fashion-hampered hotels. As a result, unspoiled woods and mountain solitudes, brawling brooks and soundless lakes, flowers and stars, rosy dawns, sunset golds and twilight purples are fast becoming the wealth of nations. All this is glorious and full of promise. It lends a happy tone to the times. Truly, if it persists in increasing, the Mariposa Grove is destined to enjoy a tremendous tomorrow.

The Grant made by Congress in 1864 really embraced two distinct groups of the Giant Sequoia. Because these approach within but a few yards of each other, they have come to be looked upon as a single body. The Upper Grove, according to Whitney, contains 365 trees of a diameter of one foot and over. This makes, as the old guide books were wont to point out, “a tree for every day in the year.” The Lower Grove is smaller in area and contains but 182 trees, which are more scattered than those of the Upper Grove. In both groves there are hardly more than 125 Sequoias over 40 feet in circumference, yet these in themselves are so imposing that to view them is compensation for a journey half the circuit of the globe.

The road enters the Lower Grove, describing a figure eight in passing through it and the Upper Grove. The Sergeant of the Guard and the Four Sentinels guard the gateway. Their bright color and port, rather than their size, at once attract the eye. Soon other monarchs, among them the prostrate Father of the Forest, are passed. Then the Grizzly Giant, standing alone in the grandeur of its own solitude, chains the attention. Upward wanders the road, passing from one marvel to another. Each seems to surpass its predecessor, and finally, when the road passes through the Wawona Tree, it seems the chief wonder of them all. But when this Highway of the Giants winds back again to the Log Cabin, the traveller learns that the real wonder has been reserved for the last. Here he will find himself in the midst of a most magnificent grouping of Sequoias. Over half a hundred are within sight of the Cabin. But not until, after examining one after another, letting the eye roam over their fluted columns and upward into the blue-green depths of their far-away tops, walking around some and into the enormous hollows of others, climbing up the sides of still other prostrate trunks and stepping them off from end to end, will a proper realization of the immensity of the Sequoia be possible.

The more remarkable trees of the Mariposa Grove have received names to individualize them. But even this practice of late has been carried too far. The names of states, cities, and persons have been indiscriminately tacked to trees that were on earth when the stones of Rome were laid. That such comparatively trivial and frivolous designations so inconsistent with the grandeur and nobility of the Sequoia should be permitted is amazing and regrettable. It detracts seriously from the finer appreciation of the tree and renders its groves “freak museums” which are looked upon with a “Barnum eye” as merely “side-show curiosities and big things.” Assuredly, such a practice is to be unreservedly condemned.

Whitney attempted to avoid just such a result as this by distinguishing 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.

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.

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.

Only two trees within the boundaries of the Grove have been touched by the axe—the Wawona and the California. Both have huge openings hewn through them. However, this cutting has not been the work of vandalism, for fire had prepared the way by almost tunneling through them. It was possible, therefore, to complete the opening with little injury to the tree in each instance. Indeed, it is not impossible that both of these Sequoias will go on living long after the generation that let daylight through them has been all but forgotten. The passage-way through the Wawona was cut during the late seventies when Henry Washburn built the first road through the Grove. The opening in the California Tree was made much later, so that tourists could experience the novelty of driving through a living tree in the late spring when the snow was yet deep in the upper part of the Grove where the Wawona stands.

In all the world there is probably not another tree more celebrated than the Wawona. It is neither wonderful in the massiveness of its great red stem, or glorious in the symmetry of its domed crown; nor has it the venerable picturesqueness of the Grizzly Giant, or the port, pomp, or perfection of the Mariposa Tree. Its fame rests simply upon the ten-foot passage-way through its base. Pictures of it appeared in geographies over half a century ago; stage coaches have passed through it times innumerable to the amazement always of certain of their passengers without discomfort, and now thousands of automobiles drive through it annually.

Of the wonder trees of the Mariposa Grove perhaps none offer a greater object lesson to man than the Faithful Couple. From earliest times mankind have destroyed each other and the fallacy of war has yet to be learned. The Faithful Couple represent two trees that warred with each other all their lives, never realizing the value of peace until, in the weakness of their old age, they united their almost spent strength to fight the greater battle against death.

They are the sole survivors of a former commonwealth of seedlings. In company with a community of tiny trees they began their lives on ground cleared for their reception by the fall of a giant of a former generation or by a ground fire. Either of these agents exposed the mineral soil so necessary to the life of the germinating seed. Sunlight, too, must have been sifted down in proper amounts since but little shade can be endured at any stage of the Sequoia’s existence. Even then the hold this zealous crop of seedlings had on life was precarious. From the instant they cast their tiny shadows on the ground, excessive moisture, erosion, and wind threatened their existence. Indeed, many must have perished in their earliest infancy from these dangers.

As soon, however, as their branches and their roots began to interfere with each other, a struggle of yet another sort ensued, and each seedling began to battle fiercely with its neighbors for light and nourishment. At the same time each exerted a beneficial influence over the other by preventing the winds from drying out the soil or the rains from carrying it away. Each was a member of a “protective union,” mutually making for better conditions of growth which gave them greater strength to carry on the fight for life. Strangely enough, each continually comforted and assisted while at the same time attempting to destroy each other, for they were the most deadly of enemies. Each was shouting “excelsior” and endeavoring to rear its head above those of its fellows in the race for the skies. “Aspire or die,” became the watchword of the group. Gradually the most fit of the Sequoian youths over-topped their slower rivals, eventually shutting off their share of sunlight and ultimately snuffing out their lives. For generations this struggle toward the sun went on, as terrible as it was silent, each survivor eliminating its rivals. And all the while the sun, the one object of this eternal striving, neither knew or apparently cared.

As the number of the defeated increased and the veterans became fewer and fewer, the struggle became less intense. At last, but two of all the host that started the fray of perpetuity versus extinction were left. These remained to preach the aristocracy of the forest—that it is of the best and for the best. The weak and unfit had been vanquished. Only the straight-trunked and the strong lived to enjoy the commonwealth of the sky. They were the chosen few. Now, unable to lift their proud heads higher into the clouds, because Nature cannot pump water to such dizzy heights, these two giants attempted to crowd one another off the earth. Not satisfied that they had found a place in the sun, they had to bear each other’s ill will. The struggle continued, but each was as powerful as the other. At length, having wasted their energy in useless conflict, they came to terms. Embracing, they finally united in confiding communion the better to brave whatever blessing or blast fate might bring them in their declining years. Have they learned the worth of peace too late?

Near the Cabin stand four wonderfully perfect Sequoias. So military in precision are they, so formal and rigid in their poise, and so perfect in alignment, that they seem to be standing ever at attention. Hence, they have been designated as the Old Guard. Others, however, prefer to call them by the more poetical name of “Sun Worshippers,” for, as the sun traces its long descent of midsummer afternoon, it throws a golden shower of sunshine upon them, and they in turn appear to revel in all this glory. Their great limbs, the size of ordinary trees, seem uplifted in prayerful attitude, while nearby companies of pine and fir appear to gather about these four high priests of the sun like worshippers in humble veneration. At sunset, during the silent battle between light and darkness, this effect is singularly impressive. Their fine round trunks seem to glow, not unlike red-hot steel drawn from intolerable flame, and their cool green domes are splashed with floods of vermillion, gold, and purple, as the fading light plays its changing wizardry upon their delicate foliage. Only at such a time does the Sequoia lose its crushing dignity and its overwhelming complacency to become a thing of beauty. Then, as the shadows steal forth and enfold the solemn forest, and the red trunks burn lower and lower until, finally, like lamps they go out, a mighty calm settles upon their silent crests where departing day lingers in a last caress.

No review of the Mariposa giants would be complete without due mention of the Fallen Hero Tree, which was dedicated by the American Legion of California in the summer of 1921, to the Unknown Dead of the World War. Surely, no dedication could be more fitting, for nothing living is more monumental than the Giant Sequoia. Besides is it not better to preserve monuments than to build them? “Almost no structure,” declares Dudley, “erected by human hands has come down to us intact through the lifetime of a Sequoia; and few that we can admire which are hewn from inanimate marble or granite can be compared to a living organism vast in life and complete in the records of every year of its existence. An empire or republic may be compared with the life of this great tree, but what empire or republic has lived twenty-five centuries? None worthy of the name. Then, in the building of the Sequoia, no blood has been shed through all its twenty-five hundred years of life, no injustice or oppression have secured the means necessary for its construction, no hatred or strife has been engendered, no accident occasioning pain or suffering—no extinction of human life has left a stain on the history of its growth.”

Again, from the standpoint of art and permanence, no dedication could be more appropriate. Few living things merit a higher place in art than the great Sequoia. It appeals to the highest intellectual and spiritual qualities of man. Of all trees it is the most dignified and majestic. After a shower its crown is oftentimes vested with a nameless light—a glory not of this earth—never seen on granite crag or marble temple. Then again no living thing is more enduring than the Sequoia. Tombstones that mark the graves of the known heroes will have become cornerless and the names they bear will have been obliterated by the elements; those who knew and loved the names will have run their brief course and be laid at rest, as will their children and many generations after them, before the Fallen Hero Tree ceases to transmit to the coming ages the memory of the Unknown Dead who fought, suffered, and died in the Great War.

Assuredly, the Mariposa Grove has other values than that of a mere “show place.” Aside from the size and age of its far-famed trees, the Grove has power to inspire and its lesson to teach. Its trees have stood steadfast for centuries indifferent to time and tide, the better to admonish mortal man lest he forget his littleness. To contemplate them in cold calm without feelings of reverence is impossible. No artist has yet been able to adequately depict their God-like composure and their haunting grandeur. Indeed, they are as gloriously beyond the brush as they are above words. That stirring apostrophe of Byron to the ocean is the nearest approach in all literature to their greatness. Most mysterious of all natural wonders, they have looked on events that distinguish centuries. Over them has been drawn the mantle of the past and within them are locked many of the secrets of history.

To stand in the presence of such ancient things is to be able to sense something of the riddle propounded by the inscrutable Sphinx. And yet more wonderful is such an impression by moonlight. On every hand tower the stern columns of the Sequoias, their shaggy crowns gemmed with stars. About them are grouped other tree hosts, rising in files and striving in vain to emulate the ample girth and majestic height of the giants. These lesser trees are pines with a perfection almost faultless, cedars as beautiful as those of Lebanon; and firs with a grace not unlike that of hills sculptured by rain drops. Among these are yet others—trees crooked and short and stumped; trees tall and slim and slender. Through the rents in the roof of this aged forest the moon looks in, sending long arrows of light to investigate some pitchy obscurity, splashing the forest floor here and there with blotches of silvery light and banding the open spaces with monstrous slanting shadows of Sequoian columns. Formless masses of impenetrable darkness loom everywhere. All the rest is a region of half-light in which everything is seen and nothing recognized. All is wrapped in a cloak of unreality, lending a weird, almost theatrical effect. Shadows move with a ghostly sound throughout the cavernous chambers. The perpetual peace of night is upon the forest.

Then it is that the Sequoia is almost holy in its tremendous power to inspire reverence. Only in the solitudes of the sea where there is no trace of land or sail to break the fearful circle set upon the surface of the great deep is such an impression of the mystic charm of space received. Here the immensity of sea and sky is comparable to the over-shadowing majesty of the Sequoia. The soul is overwhelmed with solemnity. The immeasurable calm and solitude of it all overflows like a tide. One seems on the threshold of oblivion. Life’s endless toil and endeavor are at an end, for one has caught a glimpse of the immortal.