The great Washington cedar (_Sequoia gigantea_) is another important California tree. The great sequoian timber belt lies along the Sierras, upon the first exposed mountain side--moraines of recent retiring glaciers--that face the Pacific, from Calaveras on the north to near the head of Deer Creek on the south--a distance of 200 miles, or a little above 38 degrees north to a little below 36 degrees; altitude 5,000 to 8,000 feet, and rarely 8,400 feet. 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. The stage coach passes through one; 120 children and a piano crowd inside another; a trunk furnishes a house for cotillon parties to dance "stout on stumps;" a horse and rider travel within the burnt-out hollows of others, and so on. A single tree would furnish a two-rail fence, 20 to 30 miles long. The tree has great value for wood and lumber.--_N.W. Lumberman._ * * * * * A catalogue containing brief notices of many important scientific papers heretofore published in the SUPPLEMENT, may be had gratis at this office. * * * * * The SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, $5 A YEAR. Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to subscribers in any part of the United States or Canada. Six dollars a year, sent, prepaid, to any foreign country. * * * * * All the back numbers of THE SUPPLEMENT, from the commencement, January 1, 1876, can be had. Price, 10 cents each. * * * * *