Letter from Samuel S. Shull to John Muir, 1910 Aug 25.

St JOSEPH, MO.all gone except the rim of bark and a small portion of woodnext thereto. This rim did not exceed in height fifteen feetand at one or two places a man could enter through and into the inner court which was perfectly level and smooth - it wouldmake a splendid play ground for children. I regretted that I had no way to carefully take the circumference of the old bark or to get the exact diameter. I carefully stepped the diametrthe smaller way across and made it 51 ft, then across the large way and made it 56 ft. Actual measurements would vary thesefigures but little. The young trees referred to as formingthe circle around the bark rise from the outed side thereofbut not so as to interfere with making true measurements of thecircumference.I had visited the Santa Cruz grove where mere saplings of not over 60 ft circumference grow. They astonished me much and I found that even after reading your and other acctts of the great trees my mind had not been prepared for such sights.I note the majestic old scarred monument in the King\u27s River forest you counted to be 4,000 yrs old being 35 8 diametr inside bark. This was the largest you saw as I read it in your Mountains of Calif .In the fall of 190 8 I read in news paper s of an oldtree lying on the ground and of its burning up at that date. It read to the effect that it was 46 ft high from ground to top of log. If that were the largest tree and it was 46 ft in diamtr04863https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/32571/thumbnail.jp