Description:
- (2) Driving Through Wawona, A Grand Tree of Mariposa,
Grove,
California. Copyright 1905, by E. W. Kelley.
(?).
Publisher:
- Sold only by Universal View Co.
Office : Philadelphia U.S.A.
- Universal View Co. Publishers
Studio - Philadelphia
Description (Back):
The Yosemite Series
No.
2
Wawona is one of the most popularly known of the Big Trees of Mariposa
Grove, or we might say California. It is one of the towering giants that
lives long in the memory of the fortunate tourist who has gazed upon
it in respectful wonder, and by stage driven through its mighty base
as have the party shown in our excellent stereograph. Like all
Big Trees, the diameter at the base is considerably enlarged, and the
cutting through of this ample driveway has not effected the stolidity
of the trunk. It is a novel way man has had of enhancing the
interest in a natural wonder, and of impressing firmly in our minds an
appreciation of the size of these mammoth Sequoia, by establishing a
comparison with familiar objects. To know that a regulation
four-horse stage coach can be driven at full tilt through the trunk,
means more to us than an expression of the diameter of the massive
tree in mere figures. The largest of these trees are about 300
feet high and 30 feet in diameter. .... Their
immensely strong, stately shafts with rich, purplish brown bark are
free from limbs for a height of as much as 150 feet. Some have
great branches of a diameter of 6 feet. The bark on the greater
trees reaches a thickness of 24 inches. The Big Trees retain
their youth remarkably. Most silver firs are old in their second
century, pines in their fourth, while the Big Tree growing beside them
is still in the bloom of youth, juvenile in every feature at the age
of old pines and does not attain its prime size and beauty before its
fifteen hundredth year or under favorable circumstances become old
before its three thousandth. Some are much older, showing as
many as 4,000 annual wood rings in a trunk having no traces of decay
after all these centuries of mountain weather. There is no
absolute limit to their existence, death being largely due to
accident. It is to be hoped that the protection from vandalism
now given these remarkable trees will be continued indefinitely, and
that the life of these giant conifers and their seedlings may extend
into future generations.
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