These trees, including both species, range in height from 100 to 400 feet and in circumference from 15 to 90 feet. When full grown the “Big Trees” are proportionate and symmetrical in girth and height and the beauty of the tree is enhanced by flutings that traverse the bark from the base to the apex. The root system is a remarkable feature of the “Big Trees,” for they have a very poor footing for trees of their great size and weight. The roots radiate a short distance below the surface of the ground and there is no stabilizer in the shape of a tap root such as in other woods. The bark ranges in thickness from four to thirty inches, although in rare instances it has been found fifty inches thick. The bark is light, soft and of a bright cinnamon color. The lumber from the redwood tree is light, and ranges in color from medium to light cherry, while the lumber from the “Big Trees,” or _Sequoia Gigantia_, has a decided pink cast. John Muir, the eminent California naturalist, evolved the theory from the topographical position of the enormously big trees, which grow only in the vicinity of Yosemite Park, that they escaped the glacial action because they were located in protected places in the mountains. Commercial redwood--and there are twenty-one mills cutting redwood--is one of the most valuable woods on the Pacific coast. It carries with it into lumber two traits of the tree itself--fire retardance and rot resistance. These two qualities are the real secrets of the “Big Trees.” There is no fungus growth on the redwoods neither are the redwoods attacked by boring worms or other insects so common to other species of wood. Some of the giant redwood logs must be split in the woods with powder before they can be handled on the saw carriage, and the average yield per acre is in the neighborhood of 150,000 feet. At the present rate of cutting, about 400,000,000 feet a year, there is more than one hundred years’ supply of redwood still standing. The redwoods thrive in moisture--it is taken into the roots, the foliage and the bark. This accounts for the remarkable rot-resisting quality. The railroads prefer redwood for ties because of its resistance to decay in contact with moist soil. The Southern Pacific Company today has in service in some of its sidings redwood ties that were put down under its rails fifty-five years ago. [Illustration: A LORDLY PILLAR IN ONE OF “GOD’S FIRST TEMPLES” “Grizzly Giant,” a redwood in Mariposa Grove, California, one of the most wonderful of all wonderful sights in the West _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._]