OCR Text |
Show 312. ecological i n t e g r i t y of the Climax Forest of the Western Sierra, using the same Darwinian language he had t r i e d in a letter to the Bulletin. Species develop and die l i k e individuals, animals as well as plants; and man, a t once the noblest and most conceited species on the globe, will surely become extinct as the mastadon or sequoia. But unless destroyed by man sequoia i s in no immediate danger of extinction. He was reexamining Gray's two a s s e r t i o n s of 1872, that the Sequoia was an archaic species and t h a t Man would of necessity destroy i t. He finally wrote "New Sequoia Forests of California" for Harper' s, and t r i e d to appeal to the sentiments of an eastern audience. This may have indicated a change in his strategy, since he was turning away from the western u t i l i t a r i an consciousness and attempting to appeal to a e s t h e t i c s e n s i b i l i t i es in the east. He was asking for federal intervention, probably because he knew t h a t State Government could or would not act. In Harper' s, he dramatized his own conversion to the gospel of King Sequoia, while depicting the multidimensional living community of the Sierran forest. He wanted to recommend "compulsory recreation" so he narrated his own free roaming way through the forest wilderness into the universe. Wildlife was important in t h i s unshackling. The "mammoth brown bears harmonizing grandly with the mammoth brown t r e e s , " the "perfect j e t s and flashes" of energetic Douglas s q u i r r e l s , and of course the songs of the birds - |