The name itself deserves consideration. It is that of an Indian of the Cherokee tribe, Sequo Yah, who invented an alphabet without any aid from the outside world of culture, and taught it to his tribe by writing it upon leaves. This came into general use among the Cherokees before the white man had any knowledge of it; and afterward, in 1828, a periodical was published in this character by the missionaries. Sequo Yah was banished from his home in Alabama, with the rest of his tribe, and settled in New Mexico, where he died in 1843. When Endlicher was preparing his synopsis of the conifers, in 1846, and had established a number of new genera, Dr. Jacbon Tschudi, then living with Endlicher, brought before his notice this remarkable man, and asked him to dedicate this red-wooded tree to the memory of a literary genius so conspicuous among the red men of America. Endlicher consented to do so, and only endeavored to make the name pronounceable by changing two of its letters. Endlicher founded the genus on the redwood of the Americans, _Taxodium sempervirens_ of Lamb; and named the species _Sequoia sempervirens_. These trees form large forests in California, which extend along the coast as far as Oregon. Trees are there met with of 300 feet in height and 20 feet in diameter. The seeds were brought to Europe a number of years ago, and we already see in upper Italy and around the Lake of Geneva, and in England, high trees; but, on the other hand, they have not proved successful around Zurich. In 1852, a second species of Sequoia was discovered in California, which, under the name of big tree, soon attained a considerable celebrity. Lindley described it, in 1853, as _Wellingtonia gigantea_; and, in the following year, Decaisne and Torrey proved that it belonged to Sequoia, and that it accordingly should be called _Sequoia gigantea_. While the _Sequoia sempervirens_, in spite of the destructiveness of the American lumbermen, still forms large forests along the coasts, the _Sequoia gigantea_ is confined to the isolated clumps which are met with inland at a height of 5,000 to 7,000 feet above sea-level, and are much sought after by tourists as one of the wonders of the country. Reports came to Europe concerning the largest of them which were quite fabulous, but we have received accurate accounts of them from Professor Whitney. The tallest tree measured by him has a height of 325 feet, and in the case of one of the trees the number of the rings of growth indicated an age of about 1,300 years. It had a girth of 50 to 60 feet.