Were the commercial value of the Sequoia in any manner adequate to its monumental value, all this vilifying would be but simon-pure sentimentality. Could the wood of the Sequoia be used as girders and columns in great halls and solemn cathedrals, its commercial use would somewhat befit the nobility and heroic proportions of the tree. But it is otherwise. The light, soft, brittle wood of the Big Tree unfits it for supporting ponderous roofs and massive balconies. No wise architect would use it in this manner. In fact, nearly every wood grown on the American Continent is superior to the Big Tree in the weight it will sustain. Few other trees in their lumbering exceed the Giant Sequoia in wastefulness. More lumber can be obtained from ash or maple than from the Sequoia of the Sierra. This is due to the enormous size of the tree and the brittle character of its wood. When a falling Sequoia strikes the ground with the force of many thousands of tons, any inequality of the earth’s surface suffices to break its trunk. Blasting must then be employed to reduce the great pieces to sizeable dimensions for handling. This results in fragments of all sorts unsuited for commercial use, to say nothing of the great loss of that which is cracked and splintered beyond all hope of salvage. “No where on the face of the globe,” says Dudley, “can there be found more wasteful lumbering. One-half to even three-fourths or seven-eighths of the great trunks of the Sequoias of the Converse Basin (near the Kings River) were broken and rent beyond use in falling.” In substance, breakage is so great that the major portion of the wood is suitable only for grape stakes and fence posts and the like. If no other tree save the Sequoia could furnish these products, the destruction of its forests might be justifiable. Hence, no other conclusion can be reached than that the lumbering of the Sequoia is wholly unnecessary and deserving of the severest condemnation.[3]