The size of the Grizzly Giant is sufficient to stimulate the mind to silent musings. Often this leads to “cord wood contemplations,” for the mind, in attempting to realize the prodigious amount of timber such a stem might contain, is naturally apt to associate unknown quantities with known. Ordinarily, a statement on the size of this tree, if unsupported by other known comparison, is of little import. That it requires a short journey to walk around it; that twenty people can hardly encompass its girth touching hands; that fourteen horses, head to tail, can just encircle its base, serve to visualize the measurement. If it were pierced by a lofty arch, two street cars, side by side, could pass through it; or, if it were hollowed out into a round room with a row of seats cut out of the solid heart wood, a round table could be set in the center and fourteen guests could be seated about it with uncrowded ease. If it were cut into lumber, two hundred cords of firewood and over half a million board feet[5] could be obtained from its trunk, while its shattered crown would still lie untouched on the forest floor, a beautiful rosy red and emerald ruin awaiting the coming of some all-devouring forest fire. The Grizzly Giant has long been the subject of much unpardonable exaggeration by popular rhapsodists. There is little doubt but that this tree, presumably the most ancient thing endowed with life on the planet, may fairly claim an almost fabulous antiquity. It has escaped the usual accidents to which the Sequoia is heir, and, as a result, has attained a longevity that far exceeds the ordinary life-span of the species. Since this is known, the age of the Grizzly Giant can be stated approximately. Its exact age, however, can never be ascertained until the annual rings of its trunk are counted, and this cannot be accomplished without felling the tree. [Illustration: GRIZZLY GIANT, THE ETERNAL TREE MARIPOSA GROVE Photo by H. S. Hoyt] Nor is it possible to determine the age of a Sequoia merely from its diametric measurement. Up to the present century there prevailed a common belief that this could be done and that great size was indicative of great age. If a tree measured ten feet in diameter, the supposition was that another of the same species twice as large would, accordingly, be twice as old. However, Dudley, who spent many summers in the logged areas of the Converse Basin, found this to be untrue of the Sequoia. One tree thirty-nine feet in circumference proved to be 2,171 years old; while another twice its circumference, or nearly eighty feet, was 1,510 years old.