The Mammoth Tree and the Tape Measure

Big trees, bigger claims

In his chapter on giants, Cooke notes a naming quirk: the great Californian conifers were “known to Englishmen as Wellingtonia and to Americans as Sequoia,” and were long regarded as the mammoth trees of the world.^[1] By 1882, he writes, that supremacy had passed to the “big trees” of Australia, though reliable dimensions were “very difficult to determine” in both countries.^[2]

He trusted modest numbers. A work of authority put the tallest known Sequoia at 325 feet, in the Calaveras Grove, and the Grizzly Giant of the Mariposa Grove at 93 feet around at the ground.^[3] Heights of four hundred feet and upwards, he warns, “are believed to be wholly unreliable.”^[4]

Felling one showed what the size meant. In an account Cooke credits to Dr. Berthold Seemann, the “big tree” was 96 feet around at the base and solid throughout; twenty-five men spent five days boring it with augers and cutting between the holes with an axe.^[5] It fell only with a wedge, strong leverage and a heavy breeze, and the crash threw stones and earth that marked the surrounding trees nearly a hundred feet up.^[6]

Australia's rivals were gum trees. One hollow Karri was said to admit three riders and a pack horse, who could turn inside without dismounting.^[7] Other eucalypts were measured at 480 feet and estimated at 500.^[8] Cooke's source concluded that these trees rival the Californians “in length, though evidently not in thickness.”^[9]

These are Victorian reports and estimates as Cooke compiled them, not modern verified records. His suspicion of sensational heights is part of the marvel.