California Bigtrees Date Back Before Adam

The history of the tree known as the Bigtree, or technically the Sequoia Washingtoniana, now found in isolated and sheltered spots in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, reaches back into the very beginning of history, to a period rvhen this tree probably covered the slopes of western coast morlntains'twice the height of the present ranges, and extended from some point well north ol 49" down into the Lower California peninsula. A factor in its p.resent limited range, says the U. S. Forest Service, is the strange geological transformation that some hundreds of centuries ag'o came over rvhat is norv California.

The Bibical prophecy that the valle-vs shall be exalted and the mountains rnade low was very literally fulfilled in California some aeons before it was uttered bv Isaiah. In !!e- ligtr mountain ranges of those days, running up to 20,000 feet or more in height, came a volcanic disturbance, so that molten lava poured through the valleys and stream channels, filling them up and blocking the streams. After the lava had cooled, it was so much harder than the granite of the original mountains that it resisted erosin is the granite could hot- As a consequence, the granite peaks wore away, and the lava beds remained until finally lavacoverel ridges towered above deep canyons worn in the native stone, and streams flowed and still flow many thousand feet below the level of the strearns once shaded bv thb Bigtree's grandsires.

Not long ago miners in the Tahoe National Forest workihg a gold mine 2,500 or 3,0O feet below the lava cap of one of the Sierra peaks, in one of the former streambeds, came across an old flood deposit in which were the tangled legs of.a group of the Sequoias that once grew on-the mountain slopes. Though buried for unknown thousands of years, the logs were in excellent preservation. They u'ere changed somervhat in structure, 6ut the annual rings ln a cross-section of the rvood stooC out as plainly is thoug! the trees had been fallen only a few drys beiore.

During the last thousand years the Bigtree of ioday has not reproduced appreciably, and at one time foresters felt that it was a dying species. Recently, however, efforts lrave been made, and with considerable success, to sta.rt plantations of the tree throughout California, outside of its present range.

Small plantations have been made in the Klamath National Forests in the northwest corner of the States, n€ar Lake Tahoe in the central part, and in the Sequoia National Forest in the southern Sierras. In each of these localities the tree has far outstripped the native conifers. Even in comp-etition with brush, which suppresses young pines and firs severely, the Bigtree has been able to-develop successfully. In the l?-year period since the earlier of-these plantings some of the young trees have made a growth of 8 feet, against 4 or 5 feet as the best that local saplings have attained in the same time. Foresters are beginning to wonder rvhether the Bigtree may not some day reforest large areas of California by means of plantations similar to the experimental ones already established.