My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

A LECTURE-TOUR IN AMERICA 281But of all the natural wonders I saw in America,nothing impressed me so much as these glorioustrees. As with Niagara, their majesty grows uponone by living among them. The forests of whichthey form a part contain a number of the finest conifersin the world—trees that in Europe or in anyother Northern forest would take the very first rank.These grand pines are often from two hundred to twohundred and fifty feet high, and seven or eight feet indiameter at five feet above the ground, where theyspread out to about ten feet. Looked at alone, these,are noble trees, and there is every gradation of sizeup to these. But the Sequoias take a sudden leap,the average full-grown trees being twice this diameter,and the largest three times the diameter of theselargest pines ;so that when they were first found theaccounts of the discoveries were disbelieved. Mybrother told me an interesting story of this discovery.The early miners used to keep a hunter in each campto procure game for them, venison, and especiallybear's meat, being highly esteemed. These men usedto search the forests for ten or twenty miles roundthe camps while hunting. The hunter of the highestcamp on the Stanislaus river came home one evening,and after supper told them of a big tree he hadfound that beat all he had ever seen before. It hadthree times as big a trunk as any tree within tenmiles round. Of course they all laughed at him, toldhim they were not fools : they knew what trees wereas well as he did ; and so on. Then he offered toshow it them, but none would go ; they would nottramp ten or twelve miles to be made fools of. Sothe hunter had to bide his time. A week or twoafterwards he came home one Saturday night with asmall bag of game ;but he excused himself by saying