ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

wonder of the world. As I stood in their shade, in the groves of Mariposa and Calaveras, and again under the canopy of the commoner redwood, raised on columns of such majestic height and ample girth, it occurred to me that I could not do better than to share with you, upon this occasion, some of the thoughts which possessed my mind. In their development they may, perhaps, lead us up to questions of considerable scientific interest.

I shall not detain you with any remarks-which would now be trite-upon the size or longevity of these far-famed Sequoia-trees, or of the sugar-pines, incense-cedar, and firs associated with them, of which even the prodigious bulk of the dominating Sequoia does not sensibly diminish the grandeur. Although no account and no photographic representation of either species of the far-famed Sequoia-trees gives any adequate impression of their singular majesty-still less of their beauty-yet my interest in them did not culminato merely or mainly in considerations of their Bizo and age. Other trees, in other parts of the world, may claim to be older. Certain Australian gumtrees (Eucalypti) are said to be taller. Some, we are told, rise so high that they might even cast a flicker of shadow upon the summit of the Pyramid of Cheops. Yet the oldest of them doubtless grew from seed which was shed long after the names of the pyramid-. builders had been forgotten. So far as we can judge from the actual counting of the layers of several trees, no Sequoia now alive sensibly antedates the Christian

era.

Nor was I much impressed with an attraction of

man's adding. That the more remarkable of theso trees should bear distinguishing appellations seems proper enough; but the tablets of personal names which are affixed to many of them in the most visited groves as if the memory of more or less notablo people of our day might be made enduring by the juxtaposition-do suggest some incongruity. When we consider that a hand's breadth at the circumfer ence of any one of the venerable trunks so placarded has recorded in annual lines the lifetime of the individual thus associated with it, one may question whether the next hand's breadth may not measure the fame of some of the names thus ticketed for adventitious immortality. Whether it be the man or the treo that is honored in the connection, probably either would live as long, in fact and in memory, without it.

One notable thing about the Sequoia-trees is their isolation. Most of the trees associated with them aro of peculiar species, and some of them are nearly as local. Yet every pine, fir, and cypress of California is in some sort familiar, because it has near relatives in other parts of the world. But the redwoods have The redwood-including in that name the two species of "big-trees"-belongs to the general Cypress family, but is sui generis. Thus isolated systematically, and extremely isolated geographically, and so wonderful in size and port, they more than other trees suggest questions.

none.

Were they created thus local and lonely, denizens of California only; one in limited numbers in a few choice spots on the Sierra Nevada, the other along the Coast Range from the Bay of Monterey to the fron

tiers of Oregon? Are they veritable Melchizedeks, without pedigree or early relationship, and possibly fated to be without descent?

Or are they now coming upon the stage-or rather were they coming but for man's interference-to play a part in the future?

Or are they remnants, sole and scanty survivors of a race that has played a grander part in the past, but is now verging to extinction? Have they had a career, and can that career be ascertained or surmised, so that we may at least guess whence they came, and how, and when?

Time was, and not long ago, when such questions as these were regarded as useless and vain-when students of natural history, unmindful of what the name denotes, were content with a knowledge of things as they now are, but gave little heed as to how they came to be so. Now such questions are held to be legiti mate, and perhaps not wholly unanswerable. It cannot now be said that these trees inhabit their present restricted areas simply because they are there placed in the climate and soil of all the world most congenial to them. These must indeed be congenial, or they would not survive. But when we see how the Australian Eucalyptus-trees thrive upon the Californian coast, and how these very redwoods flourish upon another continent; how the so-called wild-oat (Avena sterilis of the Old World) has taken full possession of California; how that cattle and horses, introduced by the Spaniard, have spread as widely and made themselves as much at home on the plains of La Plata as on those of Tartary; and that the cardoon-thistle

seeds, and others they brought with thom, havo multiplied there into numbers probably much exceeding those extant in their native lands; indeed, when we contemplate our own race, and our particular stock, taking such recent but dominating possession of this Now World; when we consider how the indigenous flora of islands generally succumbs to the foreigners which come in the train of man; and that most weeds (i. o., the prepotent plants in open soil) of all temperato climates are not "to the manner born," but uro selfinvited intruders--we must needs abandon the notion of any primordial and absolute adaptation of plants and animals to their habitats, which may stand in lien of explanation, and so preclude our inquiring any further. The harmony of Nature and its admirablo perfection need not be regarded as inflexible and changeless. Nor need Nature be likened to a statue, or a cast in rigid bronze, but rather to an organism, with play and adaptability of parts, and life and even soul informing the whole. Under the former view Nature would be "the faultless monster which the world ne'er saw," but inscrutable as the Sphinx, whom it were vain, or worse, to question of the whence and whither. Under the other, the perfection of Nature, if relative, is multifarious and ever renewed; and much that is enigmatical now may find explanation in some record of the past.

That the two species of redwood we are contemplating originated as they are and where they are, and for the part they are now playing, is, to say the least, not a scientific supposition, nor in any sense a probable

one.

Nor is it more likely that they are destined to

play a conspicuous part in the future, or that they would have done so, even if the Indian's fires and the white man's axe had spared them. The redwood of the coast (Sequoia sempervirens) had the stronger hold upon existence, forming as it did large forests throughout a narrow belt about three hundred miles in length, and being so tenacious of life that every large stump sprouts into a copse. But it does not pass the bay of Monterey, nor cross the line of Oregon, although wo grandly developed not far below it. The more remarkable Sequoia gigantea of the Sierra exists in numbers so limited that the separate groves may be reckoned upon the fingers, and the trees of most of them have been counted, except near their southern limit, where they are said to be more copious. A species limited in individuals holds its existence by a precarious tenure; and this has a foothold only in a few sheltered spots, of a happy mean in temperature, and locally favored with moisture in summer. Even there, for some reason or other, the pines with which they are associated (Pinus Lambertiana and P. ponderosa), the firs (Abies grandis and A. amabilis), and even the incense-cedar (Libocedrus decurrens), possess a great advantage, and, though they strive in vain to emulato their size, wholly overpower the Sequoias in numbers. "To him that hath shall be given." The force of numbers eventually wins. At least in the commonlyvisited groves Sequoia gigantea is invested in its last stronghold, can neither advance into more exposed positions above, nor fall back into drier and barer ground below, nor hold its own in the long-run where it is, under present conditions; and a little further

[ocr errors]
« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »