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Sequoia and General Grant
"DEEP IN THE WOODY WILDERNESS"
Photograph by George F. Belden
WILDERNESS OF GIANTS
PERSONS who have been in the Mariposa Grove in the Yosemite National Park have seen Big Trees of the noblest type; but only in the Giant Forest of the Sequoia National Park will they see them in the impressive glory of massed multitude and wildest grandeur. To walk and wonder through these woods, even for a few hours, is to feel an emotion which can be duplicated nowhere else.
It is not the Big Trees alone, as in the Mariposa Grove, that stir the soul, but the bewildering and climatic repetition of giants rising singly or superbly grouped from a dense and seemingly endless forest of noble growths of many other kinds.
Without the sequoias this forest would be notable. With their constant unexpected repetition the effect is dramatic, even breath taking. Many of the largest trees are casually met as the visitor winds through the aisles of pine, and their sudden appearance is the more dramatic because of the freedom of their red pillared stems from the bright green flowing moss upon the trunks and branches of the surrounding pines.
Until July, 1916, when Congress appropriated $50,000 for the purchase of a part of the private holdings in the Giant Forest, it was our national misfortune and peril that most of these mammoth trees remained the property of individuals. The balance of the property was purchased for $20,000 by the National Geographic Society and donated to the United States.
VISTAS OF THE GIANT FOREST
Many of these trees were growing thriftily when
Christ was born
Photograph by Lindley Eddy
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Last Modified: Mon, Oct 31, 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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