Thursday, September 4, 2008

This is incredible

   


It all started when I read
this article. I saw the words "John Muir" and it reminded me that I really didn't know anything about Mr. Muir. So I opened up Wikipedia  and started reading about John Muir. But then I came to the part about Muir's studies of the "...distribution and ecology of isolated groves of Giant Sequoia..." and I remembered that I had always wanted to learn more about Giant Sequoias. So I opened up that article and found something that blew my mind: 

"The oldest known Giant Sequoia based on ring count is 3,500 years old." 

!!!!3,500!!! holy crap!!!!

That would mean that this tree was "born" (are trees born? maybe "germinated") roughly in the year 1,500 B.C. So I looked up "1,500 BC" in Wikipedia and came up with this article which says, among other things, that "...according to Simcha Jacobovich," the Biblical Exodus took place at this time. The Exodus!!! But I wondered what the Church's date for the Exodus was so I looked in the Chronological Tables in the Bible Dictionary. Unfortunately we're not really given an estimate for the Exodus, but one of the next closest things was 

1063: David anointed by Samuel.
1055: David king in Hebron.

Which means that this tree was already roughly 500 years old by the time David slew Goliath! 

I seriously almost cried it was so incredible.


2 comments:

J-Dub said...

That is called stream of consciousness my friend. That was quite the scholarly journey. Have you ever gone to see the General Sherman tree. There is also a tree called the Methuselah tree. Look that up.

Lindsey said...

Aren't trees so amazing? I love them!