Possibly much of the world-wide fame of this Grove is due to the fact that it has been brought the nearest to civilization of the several Big Tree groves. Yet interest in it should not spring merely from such a consideration, for it lies in happy proximity to the grandeur of Yosemite’s cliffs and domes. Indeed, it is as distinctive a feature of Yosemite National Park as the Valley itself. Time was when the importance of the Mariposa Grove was little if at all recognized. In the last decades of the nineteenth century the Calaveras Grove held the center of the stage. The latter was then the most accessible. Because of this it became the Mecca of naturalists and celebrities of the day who made pilgrimages across the continent in order to visit it. Therefore, the Calaveras giants loom large in the earlier literature of the Sequoia. But with the passing of the stagecoach and the hitching post—with the coming of the “winged wheels” and the “iron horse,” the Mariposa Grove ceased to bloom unseen. Instead of the Calaveras Grove it became the more easily reached. Inevitably the pendulum of popularity swung toward it and yearly the tide of travel that flows its way increases. The tendency to wander into the wilderness that obtains in these feverish times is advancing the popularity of the Mariposa Grove. Mankind is coming more and more into sympathetic contact with Nature. Yearly thousands of over-civilized people are discovering that nothing so renews the health of the body, so refines the mind, so affords a margin of leisure for the soul, or so has the power to quiet the “restless pulse of care” as communion with Nature. They are discovering that real recreation and enjoyment are not found in crowded cities or fashion-hampered hotels. As a result, unspoiled woods and mountain solitudes, brawling brooks and soundless lakes, flowers and stars, rosy dawns, sunset golds and twilight purples are fast becoming the wealth of nations. All this is glorious and full of promise. It lends a happy tone to the times. Truly, if it persists in increasing, the Mariposa Grove is destined to enjoy a tremendous tomorrow. The Grant made by Congress in 1864 really embraced two distinct groups of the Giant Sequoia. Because these approach within but a few yards of each other, they have come to be looked upon as a single body. The Upper Grove, according to Whitney, contains 365 trees of a diameter of one foot and over. This makes, as the old guide books were wont to point out, “a tree for every day in the year.” The Lower Grove is smaller in area and contains but 182 trees, which are more scattered than those of the Upper Grove. In both groves there are hardly more than 125 Sequoias over 40 feet in circumference, yet these in themselves are so imposing that to view them is compensation for a journey half the circuit of the globe.