apart for public use, resort and recreation forever.  The area of the grant is two miles square and comprises two distinct groves about half a mile apart.  The upper grove contains 365 trees, of which 154 are over fifteen feet in diameter, besides a great number of smaller ones.  The average height of the Mariposa trees is less than that of the Calaveras, the highest Mariposa tree being 272 feet; but the average size of the Mariposa is greater than that of Calaveras.  The “Grizzly Giant,” in the lower grove, is 94 feet in circumference and 31 feet in diameter; it has been decreased by burning.  Indeed, the forests at times present a somewhat unattractive appearance, as, in the past, the Indians, to help them in their hunting, burned off the chaparral and rubbish, and thus disfigured many of these splendid trees by burning off nearly all the bark.  The first branch of the “Grizzly Giant” is nearly two hundred feet from the ground and is six feet in diameter.  The remains of a tree, now prostrate, indicate that it had reached a diameter of about forty feet and a height of 400 feet; the trunk is hollow and will admit of the passage of three horsemen riding abreast.  There are about 125 trees of over forty feet in circumference.  Besides these two main groves there are the Tolumne grove, with thirty big trees; the Fresno grove, with over eight hundred spread over an area of two and a half miles long and one to two broad; and the Stanislaus grove, the Calaveras group, with from 700 to 800.  There should be named in this connection the petrified forest near Calitoga, which contains portions of nearly one hundred distinct trees of great size, scattered over a tract of three or four miles in extent:  the largest of this forest is eleven feet in diameter at the base and sixty feet long.  It is conjectured that these prostrate giants were silicified by the eruption of the neighboring Mount St. Helena, which discharged hot alkaline waters containing silica in solution.  This petrified forest is considered one of the great natural wonders of California.

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF JERUSALEM.—­The earliest name of Jerusalem appears to have been Jebus, or poetically, Salem, and its king in Abraham’s time was Melchizedek.  When the Hebrews took possession of Canaan, the city of Salem was burned, but the fortress remained in the hands of the Jebusites till King David took it by storm and made it the capital of his kingdom.  From that time it was called Jerusalem.  During the reigns of David and Solomon it attained its highest degree of power.  When ten of the Jewish tribes seceded under Jeroboam they made Shechem (and later Samaria) the capital of their kingdom of Israel, and Jerusalem remained the capital of the smaller but more powerful kingdom of Judah.  The city was taken by Shishak, King of Egypt, in 971 B.C., was later conquered and sacked by Joash, King of Israel, and in the time of Ahaz, the King of Syria came against it with a large force, but could not take it.