" There are four trees over 300 feet in height, and 40 to 61
feet in circumference. The tree which was cut down occupied five men
twenty-two days, which would be at the rate of one man 110 days, or
nearly four months' work, not counting Sundays. Pump augers were used
for boring through the giant. After the trunk was severed from the
stump it required five men with immense wedges for three days to
topple it over. The bark was eighteen inches thick. The tree would
have yielded more than 1,000 cords of four-foot wood and 100 cords of
bark, or more than 1,100 cords in all. On the stump of the tree was
built a house, thirty feet in diameter, which the Rev. A.H. Tevis, an
observant traveler, says contains room enough in square feet, if it
were the right shape, for a parlor 12x10 feet, a dining-room 10x12,
a kitchen 10x12, two bed-rooms 10 feet square each, a pantry 4x8,
two clothes-presses 1-1/2 feet deep and 4 feet wide, and still have
a little to spare! The Mariposa grove is part of a grant made by
Congress to be set apart for public use, resort and recreation
forever. The area of the grant is two miles square and comprises two
distinct groves about half a mile apart. The upper grove contains 365
trees, of which 154 are over fifteen feet in diameter, besides a great
number of smaller ones. The average height of the Mariposa trees is
less than that of the Calaveras, the highest Mariposa tree being 272
feet; but the average size of the Mariposa is greater than that of
Calaveras.
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