Perfect specimens, unhurt by running fires or
lightning, are singularly regular and symmetrical in general form though
not in the least conventionalized, for they show extraordinary variety
in the unity and harmony of their general outline. The immensely strong,
stately shafts are free of limbs for one hundred end fifty feet or so
The large limbs reach out with equal boldness a every direction, showing
no weather side, and no other tree has foliage so densely massed, so
finely molded in outline and so perfectly subordinate to an ideal type.
A particularly knotty, angular, ungovernable-looking branch, from five
to seven or eight feet in diameter and perhaps a thousand years old,
may occasionally be seen pushing out from the trunk as if determined to
break across the bounds of the regular curve, but like all the others
it dissolves in bosses of branchlets and sprays as soon as the general
outline is approached. Except in picturesque old age, after being struck
by lightning or broken by thousands of snow-storms, the regularity of
forms is one of their most distinguishing characteristics. Another is
the simple beauty of the trunk and its great thickness as compared with
its height and the width of the branches, which makes them look more
like finely modeled and sculptured architectural columns than the stems
of trees, while the great limbs look like rafters, supporting the
magnificent dome-head.
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