The _Sequoia sempervirens_ forms a tolerably uninterrupted belt along the seaward side of the Coast Range. This belt is approximately 450 miles long and extends from just beyond the northern California border-line, where it fades out noticeably, south to the bay of Monterey. The maximum width of the Redwood belt is thirty miles and reaches from nearly sea level to an altitude of 3,000 feet. In the vicinity of Crescent City the Redwood approaches the ocean so closely that its tiny cones scatter their minute seeds about the cliffs upon which the wild waves of the Pacific beat. In the hot interior valleys that lie parched and shimmering under summer suns—valleys that are moistened only occasionally by winter rains, conditions are apparently too unfavorable to permit of its growth, and the tree is absent. It thrives only where the fog-laden atmosphere hovers about its crown. Its feathery arms seem to drink in these hazy, lazy mists as if by magic and to precipitate them into gentle showers. Along the river flats frequented by sea fogs, where the soil and environment are ideal, it attains its greatest development. Indeed, on the bottom lands of the Smith River and the main fork of the Eel in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties, the Redwood “completely monopolizes the soil and forms virgin forests of the heaviest stands of timber in the world.” “Stands,” according to Jepson in his monumental _Silva of California_, “of 125 to 150 thousand feet, board measure, to the acre are not uncommon. Instances of even two and one-half million board feet to the acre are on record, while 480 thousand feet, not including waste, have been taken out of a single tree.” When it is realized that good eastern forests produce but ten thousand board feet to the acre, this statement is striking. In fact, such an immense yield separates the Redwood from all the timber trees of the globe.