American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
History
American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
Big game hunting -- United States
As a special and perhaps somewhat novel argument for preservation, I
wish to remind you of the great antiquity of our game animals, and the
enormous period of time which it has taken nature to produce them. We
must have legislation, and we must have it in time. I recall the story
of the judge and jury who arrived in town and inquired about the
security of the prisoner, who was known to be a desperate character;
they were assured by the crowd that the prisoner was perfectly secure
because he was safely hanging to a neighboring tree. If our preservative
measures are not prompt, there will be no animals to legislate for.
SENTIMENT AND SCIENCE.
The sentiment which promises to save the Sequoia is due to the spread of
knowledge regarding this wonderful tree, largely through the efforts of
the Division of Forestry. In the official chronology of the United
States Geological Survey--which is no more nor less reliable than that
of other geological surveys, because all are alike mere approximations
to the truth--the Sequoia was a well developed race 10,000,000 of years
ago. It became one of a large family, including fourteen genera. The
master genus--the _Sequoia_--alone includes thirty extinct
species. It was distributed in past times through Canada, Alaska,
Greenland, British Columbia, across Siberia, and down into southern
Europe. The Ice Age, and perhaps competition with other trees more
successful in seeding down, are responsible for the fact that there are
now only two living species--the "red wood," or _Sequoia
sempervirens_, and the giant, or _Sequoia gigantea_. The last
refuge of the _gigantea_ is in ten isolated groves, in some of
which the tree is reproducing itself, while in others it has ceased to
reproduce.
In the year 1900 forty mills and logging companies were engaged in
destroying these trees.
All of us regard the destruction of the Parthenon by the Turks as a
great calamity; yet it would be possible, thanks to the laborious
studies which have chiefly emanated from Germany, for modern architects
to completely restore the Parthenon in its former grandeur; but it is
far beyond the power of all the naturalists of the world to restore one
of these Sequoias, which were large trees, over 100 feet in height,
spreading their leaves to the sun, before the Parthenon was even
conceived by the architects and sculptors of Greece.
LIFE OF THE SEQUOIA AND HISTORY OF THOUGHT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account