The California Big Trees are a kind of Redwood; or, if the strictest and most scientific judgment does not rank them in the same family, it must, at least, allow a very close relationship.

Nine groves are already certainly known, and, every year or two, as the exploration of the State becomes more exact, or approaches completion, other smaller groves, straggling groups or solitary clumps, are added to the number. Of all those thus far discovered the Calaveras Grove and the Mariposa Grove are the most celebrated, both from the extent of the groves and the size and height of the trees composing them.

The Calaveras Grove

receives its name from that of the county in which it stands. It is near the source of the south fork of the Calaveras river, while the upper tributaries of the Mokelumne and the Stanislaus rivers flow near it: the former on the north, the latter on the southeast. It is about sixteen miles from Murphy's Camp, and on or near the road crossing the Sierras by the Silver Mountain Pass. This grove has received more visitors and attained greater celebrity than any other, for four reasons:

1st. It was the first discovered.

2d. It was nearer the principal routes of travel, hence more easily accessible.

3d. One can visit it on wheels.

4th. Last, and best for the tired tourist, an excellent hotel at the very margin of the grove; Sperry & Perry, proprietors.

The grove extends northeast and southwest about five eighths of a mile. Its width is only about one fifth as great. It stands in a shallow valley between two gentle slopes. Its height above the sea is four thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine feet. In late spring or early winter a small brook winds and bubbles through the grove; but under the glare of summer suns and the gaze of thronging visitors, it modestly "dries up."

The grove contains about ninety trees which can be called really "big," besides a considerable number of smaller ones deferentially grouped around the outskirts. Several of the larger ones have fallen since the grove was discovered, in the spring of 1852; one has had the bark stripped off to the height of one hundred and sixteen feet, and one has been cut down, or, rather, bored and sawed down. The bark thus removed was exhibited in different cities in this country, and finally deposited in the Sydenham Crystal Palace, England, only to be burned in the fire which destroyed a part of that building some years since. The two trees thus destroyed were among the finest, if not the very finest in the grove. Among those now standing, the tallest is the "Keystone State;" the largest and finest, the "Empire State."

The following table gives the height of all the trees measured by the State Survey, and their girth six feet from the ground:

The exact measurement of the diameter and the ascertaining of the age of one of the largest trees in this grove, was accomplished by cutting it down. This was done soon after the discovery of the grove. It occupied five men during twenty-two days. They did it by boring into the tree with pump augers. The tree stood so perfectly vertical that, even after they had bored it completely off, it would not fall. It took three days' labor driving huge wedges in upon one side until the monumental monster leaned, toppled and fell.

They hewed and smoothed off the stump six feet above the ground, and then made careful measurements as follows:

The shorter diameter, from east to west, was twenty-three feet, divided exactly even, eleven and one half feet from the centre each way.

The thickness of the bark averaged eighteen inches. This would add three feet to the diameter, making the total diameter as the tree originally stood, a little over twenty-seven feet one way, and twenty-six feet the other. That is eighty-five feet in circumference, six feet from the ground.

The age was ascertained thus: After it had been felled, it was again cut through about thirty feet from the first cut. At the upper end of this section, which was, of course, nearly forty feet above the ground, as the tree originally stood, they carefully counted the rings of annual growth, at the same time exactly measuring the width of each set of one hundred rings, counting from the outside inwards.

These were the figures:

A small hole in the middle of the tree prevented the exact determining of the number of rings which had rotted away, or were missing from the centre; but allowing for that, as well as for the time which the tree must have taken to grow to the height at which they made the count, it is probably speaking within bounds, to say that this tree was, in round numbers, thirteen hundred years old!

As the table shows, this grove contains four trees over three hundred feet high. The heights of these big trees, in both the great groves, are usually overstated. The above measurements were carefully and scientifically made—in several cases repeated and verified—and may be relied on as correct.

The "Keystone State" enjoys the proud honor of lifting its head higher than any other tree now known to be standing on the western continent. Australia has trees a hundred and fifty feet higher. The stories occasionally told of trees over four hundred feet high having once stood in this grove, have no reasonable foundation and are not entitled to belief. Neither is it true, as some have marvelously asserted, that it takes two men and a boy, working half a day each, to look to the top of the highest tree in this grove.

The Calaveras trees, as a rule, are taller and slimmer than those of Mariposa. This has probably resulted from their growing in a spot more sheltered from the high winds which sweep across the Sierra, to which other groves have been more exposed.

The Mariposa Grove,

likewise named from the county in which it stands, is about sixteen miles directly south of the lower hotel in Yosemite valley, and about four miles southeast of Clark's Ranch. Like the Calaveras Grove, it occupies a shallow valley or depression in the back of a ridge which runs easterly between Big Creek and the South Merced. One branch of the creek rises in the grove.

The grant made by Congress is two miles square and embraces two distinct groves; that is, two collections of big trees, separated by a considerable space having none. The upper grove contains three hundred and sixty-five trees of the true Sequoia Gigantea species, having a diameter of one foot or over. Besides these, are a great number of younger and smaller ones.

The lower grove is not as large, and its trees are more scattered. It lies southwesterly from the upper. Some of its trees grow quite high up the gulches on the south side of the ridge which separates the two groves.

On Wednesday, July 7th, 1869, the largest trees of this grove were carefully measured, under the guidance and with the assistance of Mr. Clarke himself, one of the State Commissioners charged with the care of these groves and of the Yosemite valley. To prevent misunderstanding and insure uniformity, each tree was measured three feet from the ground, except where the outside of the base was burned away, when the tree was girted seven and a half feet above ground.

The following figures are taken from that day's phonographic journal, written on the spot:

The "Grizzly Giant," seven and one half feet up, measures seventy-eight and one half feet in circumference. Three feet above ground this tree measured over a hundred feet round; but several feet of this measurement came from projecting roots, where they swell out from the trunk into the mammoth diagonal braces or shores, necessary to support and stiffen such a gigantic structure in its hold upon the earth.

One hundred feet up, an immense branch, over six feet through, grows out horizontally some twenty feet, then turns like an elbow and goes up forty feet. It naturally suggests some huge gladiator, uncovering his biceps and drawing up his arm to "show his muscle." This is the largest tree now standing in the grove, and is the one of which Starr King wrote:

"I confess that my own feeling, as I first scanned it, and let the eye roam up its tawny pillar, was of intense disappointment. But then, I said to myself, this is, doubtless, one of the striplings of this Anak brood—only a small affair of some forty feet in girth. I took out the measuring line, fastened it on the trunk with a knife, and walked around, unwinding as I went. The line was seventy-five feet long. I came to the end before completing the circuit. Nine feet more were needed. I had dismounted before a structure eighty-four feet in circumference, and nearly three hundred feet high, and I should not have guessed that it would measure more than fifteen feet through."

Here, as in Yosemite and at Niagara, tourists are usually disappointed in the first view. The lifelong familiarity with lesser magnitudes makes it almost impossible for the mind to free itself from the trammels of habit, and leap at a single bound, into any adequate perception of the incredible magnitudes which confront him. One needs spend at least a week among these Brobdignagian bulks, come twice a day and stay twelve hours each time, before he grows to any worthy appreciation of their unbelievable bigness.

Of the other trees, the largest ten, measured three feet above ground, gave the following circumferences:

Others of equal size, possibly greater than some above, were not measured.

"The Governor" is a generic name, applied in honor of him who may happen to be the actual incumbent at any time. At present, of course, it means Gov. Haight. It is an actual botanical fact, that the tree has actually gained in height under the present gubernatorial administration. It certainly is not as low(e) by several inches as during the reign, or lack of rain, of the preceding incumbent.

The same general complimentary intention christened the "Governor's Wife," which has as graceful a form and as dignified a bearing among trees as such a lady should have among the women of the State. Then, too, the tree stands with a gentle inclination toward "The Governor," which may not be without its suggestions to those fond of tracing analogies.

The "Chief Commissioner" is the largest of a clump of eight, which stand grouped, as if in consultation, at a respectful distance from the Governor.

"Pluto's Chimney" is a huge old stump, burned and blackened all over, inside and out. Hibernian visitors sometimes call it "The Devil's Dhudeen." It is between forty and fifty feet high. On one side of the base is a huge opening, much like a Puritan fireplace or a Scotch inglenook; while within, the whole tree is burned away so that one can look up and out clear to the very sky through its huge circular chimney. Outside, the bark and the roots have been burned wholly away. Before the burning, this tree must have equaled the largest.

Nearly in front of the cabin in the upper grove, and not far from the delicious spring before alluded to, stands a solitary tree having its roots burned away on one side, leaning south, and presenting a general appearance of trying to "swing round the circle." In view of all these facts, some imaginative genius once christened it "Andy Johnson." The only inappropriate thing in the application of that name was the fact that the tree stood so near a spring of cold water. The "Big Diamond" or "Koh-i-noor" is the largest of a group of four very straight and symmetrical trees occupying the corners of a regular rhombus or lozenge, so exactly drawn as to readily suggest the name "Diamond Group," by which they have been called.

As already remarked, the Mariposa Grove really consists of two groves—the upper and the lower, which approach within a half mile of each other. The upper grove contains three hundred and sixty-five trees; one for every day in the year, with large ones for Sundays. By an unfortunate omission, however, it makes no provision for leap year. This is the principal objection which unmarried spinster tourists have thus far been able to urge against it.

The lower grove has two hundred and forty-one trees, generally smaller than those of the upper grove. The total number in both groves, according to the latest official count, is six hundred and six.

Within ten years several trees have fallen, and others follow them from time to time, so that the most accurate count of them made in any one year might not tally with another equally careful count a year earlier or later.

Among the prostrate trees lies the "Fallen Giant," measuring eighty-five feet around, three feet from the present base. The bark, the sapwood, the roots, and probably the original base, are all burned away. When standing, this monster must have been by far the largest in both groves, and, indeed, larger than any now known in the world. It should have been called "Lucifer," a name hereby respectfully submitted for the consideration of future tourists.

The living trees of this species exude a dark-colored substance, looking like gum, but readily dissolving in water. This has a very acrid, bitter taste, which probably aids in preserving the tree from injurious insects, and preventing the decay of the woody fibre.

The fruit or seed is hardly conical, but rather ellipsoidal or rudely oval in form, an inch and a half long by one inch through, and looking far too insignificant to contain the actual germ of the most gigantic structure known to botanical science.

Their age, indicated by the concentric rings of annual growth, carefully counted and registered by the gentlemen of the State Survey, varies from five to thirteen, possibly fifteen, centuries.

The word "Sequoia," is the Latin form of the Indian Sequoyah, the name of a Cherokee Indian of mixed blood, who is supposed to have been born about 1770, and who lived in Will's Valley, in the extreme northeastern corner of Alabama, among the Cherokees. His English name was George Guess. He became famous by his invention of an alphabet, and written letters for his tribe. This alphabet was constructed with wonderful ingenuity. It consisted of eighty-six characters, each representing a syllable, and it had already come into considerable use before the whites heard anything of it. After a while, the missionaries took up Sequoyah's idea, had types cast, supplied a printing press to the Cherokee nation, and in 1828 started a newspaper printed partly with these types. Driven, with the rest of his tribe, beyond the Mississippi, he died in New Mexico, in 1843. His alphabet is still in use, though destined to pass away with his doomed race, but not into complete oblivion, for his name, attached to one of the grandest productions of the vegetable kingdom will keep his memory forever green.

For the foregoing bit of aboriginal biography, we gratefully acknowledge our obligation to Prof. Brewer and the gentlemen of the State Survey, to whom he originally furnished it.

Had Sequoyah's name been Cadmus—had the Cherokees been Phenicians—and had this modern heathen of the eighteenth century invented his alphabet away back before the Christian era, his name would have stood in every school history among those of inventors, philosophers, discoverers and benefactors; as it is he's "only an Indian." No one can deny, however, that he was one of the best re(a)d men in the history of the world.

Both the Calaveras and the Mariposa groves contain hollow trunks of fallen trees, through which, or into which, two and even three horsemen can ride abreast for sixty or seventy feet. Each grove, also, has trees which have been burned out at the base, but have not fallen. Still standing, they contain or enclose huge charcoal-lined rooms, into which one can ride. The writer has been one of four mounted men who rode their horses into such a cavity in the Mariposa grove, and reined their horses up side by side without crowding each other or pressing the outside one against the wall.

One who has seen only the ordinary big trees of "down east," or "out west," forests, finds it hard to believe that any such vegetable monsters can really exist. Even the multiplied and repeated assurances of friends who have actually "seen them, sir," and "measured them myself, I tell you," hardly arrest the outward expression of incredulity, and seldom win the inward faith of the skeptical hearer. Fancy yourself sitting down to an after-dinner chat in the fifteen-foot sitting room, adjoining the dining room of equal size. You fall to talking of the "Big Trees." You say, "Why, my dear sir, I have actually rode into, and sat upon my horse in, a tree whose hollow was so big that you could put both these rooms into it, side by side, and still have seven or eight feet of solid wood standing on each side of me. No, sir, not romancing at all. It's an actual, scientific, measured fact, sir." Your friend looks quizzically and incredulously into both your eyes, as he says, "Why, now see here, my dear fellow, do you suppose I'm going to believe that? Tell a moderate whopper, and back it up with such repeated assertion and scientific authority, and you might possibly make me believe it, or at least, allow it until you were fairly out of hearing; but to sit here at a man's own fireside and tell him such a monstrous story as that, and expect him to swallow it for truth—ah, no, my dear fellow, that's too much, altogether too much."

So you have to give it over and drop the argument for the present, in the hope that some one of the numerous excursion parties, now so rapidly multiplying every year, will soon include him, carry him into the actual presence of these veritable monsters of the vegetable kingdom, confront him with their colossal columns, and compel his belief.

And yet the general incredulity is hardly to be wondered at, after all. In nearly every one of us, our faith in what may be, largely depends upon our personal knowledge of the facts which have been. In matters pertaining to the outward, the material, the physical world, our actual experience of the past governs our belief as to the future. And even when the objects of our disbelief are set bodily before our vision, and we have actually seen them and handled them, it is often difficult to believe our own eyes. So far is "seeing from believing" when the sight so far surpasses all former experience.

There is another grove of big trees in Fresno county, about fourteen miles southeast of Clark's. It is not far from a conspicuous point called Wammelo Rock. The State Survey did not include it, neither have tourists usually visited it. According to the description of Mr. Clark, who has partially explored it, it extends for more than two miles and a half in length, by from one to two in width. He has counted five hundred trees in it, and believes it to contain not far from six hundred in all. The largest which he measured had a circumference of eighty-one feet at three feet from the ground.

Following along the slope of the Sierras, to the southeast about fifty miles, between King's and Kaweah rivers, we find the largest grove of these trees yet discovered in the State.

The State Survey partially explored this locality, and have given us the following particulars: The trees form a belt rather than a grove. This belt is found about thirty miles north-northeast of Visalia, near the tributaries of the King's and Kaweah rivers, and along the divide between. They are scattered up and down the slopes and along the valleys, but reach their greatest size in the shallow basins where the soil is more moist.

Along the trail from Visalia to Big Meadows the belt is four or five miles wide and extends through a vertical range of twenty-five hundred feet; that is, the trees along the lower edge of the belt stand nearly half a mile in perpendicular height below those along its upper boundary. The length of this belt is as much as eight or ten miles and may be more.

These trees are not collected in groves, but straggle along through the forests in company with the other species usually found at this height in the Sierras. They are most abundant between six and seven thousand feet above the sea. Their number is very great; probably thousands might be counted. In size, however, they are not remarkable; that is, in comparison with those of Calaveras and Mariposa. But few exceed twenty feet in diameter—the average is from ten to twelve feet, while the great majority are smaller.

One tree which had been felled, had a diameter of eight feet, not including the bark, and was three hundred and seventy-seven years old. The largest one seen was near Thomas' Mill. This had a circumference of one hundred and six feet near the ground, though quite a portion of the base had been burned away.

Another tree, which had fallen and been burned hollow, was so large that three horsemen could ride abreast into the cavity for thirty feet, its inside height and width being nearly twelve feet. Seventy feet in, the diameter of the cavity was still as much as eight feet.

The base of this tree could not be easily measured; but the trunk was burned off at one hundred and twenty feet from the base, and at that point had a diameter, not including the bark, of thirteen feet and two inches. At one hundred and sixty-nine feet from its base, this tree was still nine feet through. The Indians speak of a still larger tree to the north of King's river. It was not in the power of the State Survey to look it up and measure it at that time.

All through these forests young Big Trees of all sizes, from the seedling upwards, were very numerous. At Thomas' Mill they cut them up into lumber, as if they were the most common tree in the forest.

Fallen trunks of old trees are also numerous. Many of these must have lain for ages, as they had almost wholly rotted away, though the wood is very durable.

Judging from the number of these trees found between King's and Kaweah rivers, it would seem that the Big Trees best like that locality and its vicinity, so that it is not improbable that a further exploration would show a continuous belt of some fifty or sixty miles in extent.

From the researches thus far made, it appears that the Big Tree is not as strange and exceptional as most suppose. It occurs in such abundance, of all ages and sizes, that there is no reason to conclude that it is dying out, or that it belongs exclusively to some past geological or botanical epoch. The age of the big trees is not as great as that assigned by some of the highest authorities to some of the English yews. And in height they hardly begin to equal that of the Australian Eucalyptus amygdalina, many of which, on the authority of Dr. Muller, the eminent Government botanist, have exceeded four hundred feet. One, indeed, reached the enormous height of four hundred and eighty feet, thus overtopping the tallest Sequoia by one hundred and fifty-five feet. And in diameter, also, there are trees which exceed the Big Tree, as, for example, the Baobab; but these are always comparatively low, rarely reaching the height of more than sixty or seventy feet, while their excessive diameter comes from a peculiarly swollen and distorted base. On the whole, we may safely claim that no known tree in the world equals the California Big Trees in the combined elements of size and height, and in consequent grandeur, unless, indeed, it may be the Eucalyptus. The largest Australian tree yet reported, is said to be eighty-one feet in circumference, four feet from the ground. This is a highly respectable vegetable, but not quite equal to the certified measurements of some of the largest of the California Big Trees.

So the American tourist through the wonders of California, may yet claim that his country still possesses the loftiest waterfalls, the most overpowering cliffs, and the grandest trees yet known upon the face of the globe.