olding glacier must have swept as the wind does
to-day.

_July 28._ No cloud mountains, only curly cirrus wisps scarce
perceptible, and the want of thunder to strike the noon hour seems
strange, as if the Sierra clock had stopped. Have been studying the
_magnifica_ fir--measured one near two hundred and forty feet high, the
tallest I have yet seen. This species is the most symmetrical of all
conifers, but though gigantic in size it seldom lives more than four or
five hundred years. Most of the trees die from the attacks of a fungus
at the age of two or three centuries. This dry-rot fungus perhaps enters
the trunk by way of the stumps of limbs broken off by the snow that
loads the broad palmate branches. The younger specimens are marvels of
symmetry, straight and erect as a plumb-line, their branches in regular
level whorls of five mostly, each branch as exact in its divisions as a
fern frond, and thickly covered by the leaves, making a rich plush over
all the tree, excepting only the trunk and a small portion of the main
limbs. The leaves turn upward, especially on the branchlets, and are
stiff and sharp, pointed on all the upper portion of the tree. They
remain on the tree about eight or ten years, and as the growth is rapid
it is not rare to find the leaves still in place on the upper part of
the axis where it is three to four inches in diameter, wide apart of
course, and their spiral arrangement beautifully displayed. The
leaf-scars are conspicuous for twenty years or more, but there is a good
deal of variation in different trees as to the thickness and sharpness
of the leaves.

After the excursion to Mount Hoffman I had seen a complete cross-section
of the Sierra forest, and I find that _Abies magnifica_ is the most
symmetrical tree of all the noble coniferous company. The cones are
grand affairs, superb in form, size, and color, cylindrical, stand
erect on the upper branches like casks, and are from five to eight
inches in length by three or four in diameter, greenish gray, and
covered with fine down which has a silvery luster in the sunshine, and
their brilliance is augmented by beads of transparent balsam which seems
to have been poured over each cone, bringing to mind the old ceremonies
of anointing with oil. If possible, the inside of the cone is more
beautiful than the outside; the scales, bracts, and seed wings are
tinted with the loveliest rosy purple with a bright lustrous
iridescence; the seeds, three fo