This
last, before the storms truncated it, had a height of four hundred feet.
I found a rough ladder laid against its trunk,--for it is
prostrate,--and climbed upon its side by that and steps cut in the bark.
I mounted the swell of the trunk to the butt and there made the
measurement which ascertained its diameter as thirty-four feet,--its
circumference one hundred and two feet _plus_ a fraction. Of course the
thickness of its bark is various, but I cut off some of it to a foot in
depth and there was evidently plenty more below that.
To make some rough attempt at a conception of what these figures amount
to, suppose the tree fallen at the gable of an ordinary two-story house.
You propose to cross by a plank laid from your roof to the upper side of
the tree. That plank would perceptibly slope _up_ from your roof-peak.
Through another tree, lying prostrate also, and hollow from end to end,
our whole cavalcade charged at the full trot for a distance of one
hundred and fifty feet. The entire length of this tree before truncation
had been about three hundred and fifty feet. In the hollow bases of
trees still standing we easily sheltered ourselves and horses. We tried
throwing to the top of some of them with ludicrous unsuccess, and
finally came to the monarch of them all, a glorious monster not included
in the above table of dimensions, as most of those measured are still
living, and all have the bark upon them still, while _the_ tree is to
some extent barked and charred.
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