pot."

We all agreed that it must be, and that we should like to take up our
abode there.

"So I thought," he answered. "But as a man cannot well live on fish and
water-fowl without corn, and potatoes, and vegetables, not to speak of
beef and mutton, and none of these things were to be procured within a
hundred miles of the place, I was glad to get out of it. There's
another wonderful spot away to the south, near Sousa, where I have been.
There is a stream called the Stanislas river. Up it I went, and then
journeyed along one of its tributaries, the high banks of which are
covered with trees, till I reached a broad valley. I could scarcely
believe my eyes. There arose before me a number of trees larger and
taller than any I supposed existed on the face of the globe. It is
called the Mammoth-tree Valley, and is 1500 feet above the level of the
sea. There were no less than ninety of them scattered over a space of
about forty acres, and rising high above the surrounding pine forest.
They are a species of pine or cone-bearing trees. [Coniferae
(Wellingtonia gigantea.)] In the larger ones the branches do not begin
to spread out till the stem has reached a height of 200 feet, and some
are upwards of 300 feet high. One was 32 feet in diameter--that is, 96
feet in circumference--while the smallest and weakest is not less than
16 feet in diameter. The tops of nearly all have been broken off by
storms, or by the snow resting on them. The Indians have injured others
by lighting fires at their bases, while the white men have cut down one
and carried away the bark of another to exhibit in far-off lands. It
took five men twenty-five days to cut down the `Big tree,' for so it was
called. They accomplished their work by boring holes in the stem, and
then cutting towards them with the axe. The stump which remains has
been smoothed on the top, and the owner of the property, who acted as my
guide, assured me that sixteen couple could waltz on it. In one a
spiral staircase has been cut, so that I was able to ascend to a
considerable height by it. My acquaintance, the owner of the estate on
which these monsters grow, has given names to all of them. One he calls
Uncle Tom's Cabin, because there is a hollow in the trunk capable of
holding from twenty to thirty people. One hollow trunk has been broken
off and lies on the ground, and a man on horseback can ride from one end
of it to the other. There are two trees called Husb