The belt is broken by two gaps, each
40 miles wide, caused by manifest topographical and glacial reasons, one
gap between Calaveras and Tuolumne, the other between Fresno and King's
River; thence the vast forest trends south, across the broad basins of
Kaweah and Tule, a distance of 70 miles, on fresh moraine soil, ground
from high mountain flanks by glaciers. The inscriptions are scarcely
marred by post glacial agents, and the contiguous water-worn marks are
often so slight in the rock-bound streams as to be measured by a few
inches. Rarely does one of these sound and vigorous cedars fall, and
those that do will lie 800 to 1,000 years, scarcely less perishable than
the granite on which they grew. The great sequoian ditches, dug at a
blow by their fall, and the tree tumuli, always turned up beside the
deep root-bowls, remain; but, scientists assert, not a vestige of one
outside the present forests has yet presented itself, hence the area has
not been diminished during the last 8,000 or 10,000 years, and probably
not at all in post glacial times. These colossal sequoias rise 275, 300,
and even 400 feet aloft; are 20 to 30, and in some rare cases 40 feet in
diameter, looking like vast columnar pillars of the skies. No known
trees of the world compare with them and their kin, the redwoods, for
the focused proximity of such a marvelous amount of timber within
limited areas--as it were, the highest standard of timber-land capacity.
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