The southern groves mark an almost continuous line through the majestic, trackless forests of pine and fir from the Kings River southward to Deer Creek. The gaps in the belt gradually become increasingly narrow, and then cease altogether. The Sequoia may be said to extend across the wide basin of the Kaweah and Tule Rivers in noble forests broken only by deep, yawning canyons with rivers threading their sinuous way down the center of each. Here, too, the belt widens out, extending from the granite promontories overlooking the fading line of tawny foothills to within sight of the summit peaks—regions of rock and ice lifted above the limit of life. The largest and most famous of these forests is the Giant Forest located near the mouth of the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River and within the confines of the Sequoia National Park. This most wonderful of all American forests was named by John Muir, who must have wept for joy when he stumbled upon it. Thousands of trees are congregated in this forest, five thousand of which are said to be veritable titans in size. It possesses, also, the largest tree in the world, the General Sherman, which has a diameter of 36.5 feet and a height of 280 feet—measurements which easily entitle it to wear the purple of the King of all trees. In this glorious forest the Sequoia is indifferent alike to exposure and soil, and is found growing in profusion on slopes of every character, some even clinging to life on bare granite surfaces in a way wonderful to behold. Multitudes of tender seedlings are continually springing up in moist, sunny openings to carry on the royal line, and companies of slender saplings are eagerly crowding up every slope deserted by their elders, crowning all save the highest eminences. In fact, the marvelous bounty of Nature has produced here the finest assemblage of conifers known to botanical science. The entire region is a billowy sea of evergreens, sinking and rising with the undulations of the land with an unfailing luxuriance, the great rounded domes of the giants swelling above the verdant canopy of pines and firs to mark where the Sequoias sweep along the ridges, rise out of deep canyons, or encamp on sunny meadows in conclave grand and solemn. PART TWO Giant Sequoias _of the_ Mariposa Grove +Chapter III+ GALEN CLARK The Giant Sequoia must have afforded pride and pleasure to the Creator for it is the finest tree He ever made. Of a truth, there is not in all the world a tree more wonderful.