Preview
Circa Date
1887
Transcription
107
Lofty Sequoia notes on yellow paper
# A supremely noble kind of tree. Redwood once more widely distributed not Gigantea
The sequoia is the most venerable looking of all the Sierra Giants standing erect & true in poise so perfect they seem to make no effort. Their strength so perfect it is invisible, neither heavy or light in appearance. Huge limbs 6 ft diameter of heaviest wood give no appearance of down-dragging heavy sagging but take the slant which gives the most perfect form. Standing brown & gray & yet lichened indestructible vitality sound & serene after the hardships [exposure to wind] & weather of 5000 years (antediluvian) monuments through which we gaze in contemplation as through windows into the depths of primeval time.
# Silently planted their minute seeds wafted on the breeze [glancing] wavering to appointed places alighting silently lightly as flakes of snow. Growing in silence. Making only one grand sound rock shaking when they fall
It may be called the Life Tree. Igdrasil [by Thomas Carlyle]. Immortal. Sending roots & branches into earth & sky. [Entwining] all the fates without being charged. Past & Present 161.309 Forests 122 [by Thomas Carlyle]
Camp fires in Sequoia woods shafts illumined Light & heat stored up 1000 of years ago. Pleasant to feel how the sun worked for amassing a fortune for as of life giving heat & light creating beauty centuries ago.
Huge & old forest sons of Anak. Igdrasil hands in the heavens roots in the rocks dwelling in all times. The fate of nations passing by in review. Like carved fluted columns [moveless] pillars of temples [ ] as storm. Not rocking in the heavens blasts
Main pillars of the forest roof
108 Sequoia Belt Autumn 1875
# Sequoia Forest fire
Varied beauty of fire effects. Fire grazing nibbling on the floor among old close packed leaves, spring into 1000 of little jets lamps of pine flame on twigs [hurry] loosely & [taller spirts] of flame big bonfires blaze where heavy branches smashed in heaps old prostrate trunks. Glowing red hot bars after park burned off smoke & showers of white fluffy ashes from fire burning & the trunks rills of fire violet colored running up the furrows swiftly - lighting huge torches that flaming overhead 200 feet on top of pillars dried & fractured by lightning strike. Working in huge arches of soot & heavy whole trunks [wh] hollow into huge tubes as they stand up which may look & see the stars at noonday. Telescopes fragment like incense smoke [ascending] [bronzing/browsing] on the fallen twigs & tiny rosebushes & [chamachaha] advancing in long bent lines like a flock of sheep grazing. Rushing in roaring storms of energy like devouring lions. The destruction of fine buildings on which loving act has been lavished in [ ] conflagrations sad as [they] it is. Seems less deplorable than these majestic living temples.
In [ ] pine thousands burn at once in one [continuous] flame [flying] like storm clouds. Terrific grandeur oceans of billowy flame, redding the sky at night, Grandest Gothic Cathedrals. Clustered pillars
Rise lightly from the hills without might airily even & full of grace though the largest weight near 500 tons. Cubic foot water 998 ounces.
# □ Fierce fateful roar [stormy] booming black & [ ] smokey surges streaming through the trees the columns of which look like masts of ships obscured in scud & flying clouds. Height & hollow filled with red surges, billows racing up hill in ragged edged flapping cataracts. Every living thing [flamy/flaming]
Resource Identifier
MuirReel33 Notebook01 Img056.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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