"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 Husband and Wife, and another he called the Family Group, consisting of father, mother, and rather a large progeny of twenty-five children, regular sons of Anak. The father fell some time ago, and striking another tree broke off the upper part.  That portion measures 300 feet, and the part which still stands 150--so that the whole tree was 450 feet in height.  Three hundred feet is the ordinary height of the giants of the forest.  From various calculations it would seem that these trees must have existed for three thousand years at least--perhaps more; I can only say that I considered the spectacle well worthy of the long journey I took to behold it."