The late Dr. Dudley examined the stump of a lumbered Sequoia in the Converse Basin which registered the effects of great forest fires. He found the tree to be 2,171 years old when cut down. At the age of 516 years the tree suffered its first burn, acquiring a scar three feet in width. One hundred and five years were required to heal the injury. A second burn occurred when the tree was 1,712 years old, making two wounds, one twelve inches in width, the other two feet. One hundred and thirty-nine years passed before these scars were covered. Then, when the tree came to be 2,068 years old, a tremendous conflagration burned a great scar eighteen feet wide and thirty feet high. This was still unhealed when the tree was cut down. Professor Dudley estimated that at the rate of the above healing it would require at least _four centuries and a half_ to repair the result of the injury done by this last forest fire. No other tree could have lived under similar circumstances without becoming diseased or decayed. This greatest among trees stands alone in its superb resistance to insect and fungi attack, and this, coupled with a marvelous recuperative power, enables it to withstand injuries of such considerable magnitude, and to endure long enough to recover from them. Its vitality, as deep as it is tenacious, and its very love for living, vest it with this sublime power. Symbol of an unconquered will, the Sequoia has caught more of the immortal than any other living thing. The Gordian Knot of its existence would never be cut were it possible to protect it for all time from fire and the axe. Had it remained untouched by flames of the past, the vastly shrunken present-day habitat of this great tree might possibly contain the ragged rear guards of the departed giants of the Miocene, and a single Sequoia would be old enough to establish a paleontological era. +Chapter VI+ THE ETERNAL TREE