The Glorious Redwood

The redwood, says John Muir in The Atlantic, iethe gloryof the coast range, tt exteuds along the western slope, in a nearly continuóos belt ten miles wide, from beyond the Oregon bonndary to the south of Santa Crnz, a distance of nearly 400 miles, and in massive, sustained grandeur and closeness of growth surpasses all the other timber woods of the world. Trees from 10 to 15 f eet in diameter and 800 feet high are not uncommon, aad a few attain a height of 850 feet, or even 400, with a diameter at the base of 15 to 20 feet or more, ■while the ground beneath them is a garden of fresh, exuberant ferns, lilies, gaultheria, and rhododendron. As timber the redwood is too good to live. The largest sawmills ever built are bnsy along its seaward border, "with all the modern improvements, " but so immense is the yield per acre it will be long ere the supply is exhausted. The big tree is also to some extent being made infco lumber. Though far less abundant it is, fortunately, less accessible, extending aloug the western flank of the Sierra in a partially interrupted belt about 250 miles long, at a height of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea. The enormous logs, too heavy to handle, are blasted into mauageable dimen8Í0Ds with gnnpowder. A large portion of the best tirnber is thus shattered and destroyed, and, with thehuge, knotty tops, is left in ruins for tremendons fires that kill every tree within their range, great and smalL