American river, at an elevation of 51oo feet, and 70 miles north of the Calaveras Grove. It now contains only six trees, of which the two largest are 240 and 220 feet high.
2. The Calaveras Grove’ is at an elevation of 4750 feet, occupying a belt only 3200 by 700 feet in extent, and containing 90 to 100 trees of large size, besides a considerable number of small ones. The largest tree standing here was barked up to 116 feet high, and the bark set up in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, where it was afterwards destroyed by fire. This tree was 302 feet high and 96 feet in girth at the ground. It was felled by boring holes all round the trunk with pump augers, which occupied five men for twenty-two days. An even larger tree in this grove was the “ Father of the Forest,” cut down in 1853, and now lying on the ground ; it has been hollowed out by fire so that a man can ride through it on horseback for a distance of 82 feet. Its extreme length, so far as could be judged from the remains, was 365 feet, and its circumference at the base is said to have been 110 feet.
The largest living trees in this grove were as follows, only nine being, according to Whitney, over 300 feet :—
- “The two Sentinels,” over 300 feet high by 23 feet in diameter.
- “The Pride of the Forest,” 300 re 23 ”
- “Abraham Lincoln,” 320 Pa 18 me
- “Starr King,” 360 s girth not stated.
- “General Scott,” 325 5 re
- “Keystone State,” . 325 : diameter at 6 feet, 14 feet 3 inches.
- “General Jackson,” 319
- “Mother of the Forest,” 315
without bark.
- “Daniel Webster,” 307 a ‘a » 15 feet
3. The Stanislaus or South Calaveras Grove is about six miles south-east of the last, and is said to have contained, when Mr. Sterry owned it, 1380 trees from 1 foot to 34 feet in diameter, but the number now existing is much less. The largest standing trees mentioned were as follows :—
- “Columbus.”
- “New York,” over 300 feet high by 104 feet in girth.
- “Ohio,” ge STI 2 103 i
- “Massachusetts,” ,, 307 < 98 :.
Besides these, ‘“‘Smith’s Cabin,” a hollow tree in which a hunter is said to have lived for three years, 21 feet by 16 feet in size inside, and ‘Old Goliath,” a fallen tree said to be 100 feet or more in circumference, were remarkable for their size.
About 25 miles south-east of this is a grove called the Crane Flat Grove, most of the trees in which are said to be rather smaller than those in the Calaveras Groves.
1 Cf. note 6 on p. 701.
