It is true that the Sequoia has not extended its range since post-glacial time. If it has, the monuments of its extension have remained no more enduring than those left by departed bees and butterflies, for in the gaps between the Sequoia groves, not a root-hole or a trench made by a falling giant has been discovered. The fact that such records are well nigh imperishable, taken in conjunction with their abundant presence in the groves themselves, led John Muir to conclude that their absence outside is indicative of the non-extension of the species beyond its present limits since the glacial period that gave the Sierras their aspect of savage grandeur. Before this epoch, however, it is believed that the Sequoia extended in an unbroken belt along the Sierra and that the present-day gaps mark the paths of these great ice rivers. In fact, wherever the glaciers once wore their bodies into the canyons, the Sequoia is found wanting. And though the tree has not re-united its broken clusters, it has held its own ground against rival species. John Muir took this as evidence that the Sequoia exhibited no decadence since the glacial period. The unequivocal conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that the Sequoia is in no danger of extinction. It has not lost the original hardihood of its race. Nor is the present but the epilogue of the imposing part it has played in the past—it is the augury of a yet more splendid future awaiting a race whose ancestors reach back into the borderland of the forgotten ages. PART THREE Naming _the_ Sequoia +Chapter VIII+ A NAME FOR THE AGES The infinite deal of trivial fussiness that has clustered about the botanical name of the Giant Sequoia is, indeed, a grievous misfortune. The tree must regard it all with consummate unconcern. Alone with the past and having a dignity not of earth in its mien it stands as indifferent to agitation that has to do with the petty passions of humanity as the far-away patient stars. Suggestive of no strife save that of emulation, it looks with complacent disdain upon life’s vanities; its strange medley of littleness and greatness, its commingling of folly and wisdom. Yet for all the great Sequoia’s majestic aloofness, its name has become embroiled in endless bickerings and surrounded with technicalities apt to nip any budding enthusiasm for botanical nomenclature.