Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/699

Rh S E Q S E Q 673 but, on the other hand, that of Bernard, 1 who travelled about 870, applies better to the eastern than to the western. If the transference can be supposed to have taken place at the time of the Persian invasion, one of the main difficul- ties in the adoption of Fergusson's theory will be greatly lessened, for the intervening period of more than 450 years would go far to explain how the crusaders, on gaining possession of the city in 1099, failed to make it their first business to revert to the original site. On the whole, the question is one which can hardly be satisfactorily deter- mined until the Arabic authorities on the subject have been duly scrutinized, and as yet we have practically access to none earlier than the two above referred to. 2 Within the last few years a third locality has been sug- gested. In 1878 Captain Conder, in his Tent Work in Palestine (i. pp. 372-376), expressed a strong conviction that the real site was to be found on a rocky knoll outside the northern wall, and close to the cave known as "Jeremiah's Grotto." He argued that not only did this locality meet the requirements of the Gospel narratives, being outside the city and near one of the great roads leading from the country, but that in this direction lay " the great ceme- tery of Jewish times" as testified by "the sepulchre of Simon the Just preserved by Jewish tradition," and the monument of Helena "fitted with a rolling stone such as closed the mouth of the Holy Sepulchre." Here also by early Christian tradition had been the scene of the martyrdom of Stephen, which doubtless occurred at the place of public execution, and to this day, according to Dr Chaplin, the Jews designate the knoll " by the name Beth has-Sekilah, ' the place of stoning ' (domus lapidationis), and state it to be the ancient place of public execution mentioned in the Mishnah." The hill itself appears to present a striking resemblance to a human skull, and so to associate itself with the word " Golgotha." The adoption of this site by Dr Chaplin, the Rev. S. Merrill, Schick, and perhaps especially the late General Gordon, 3 has aided in giving it a considerable popularity. It is, however, a purely conjectural location, and involves the assumption that all the Christian writers from the 4th century down- wards, as well as the mother of Constantino, were in error as to the real site. (A. B. M'G.) SEQUESTRATION. See BANKRUPTCY. SEQUOIA, a genus of conifers, allied to Taxodium and Cryptomeria, forming one of several surviving links between the firs and the cypresses. The two species usually placed in this group are evergreen trees of large size, indigenous to the west coast of North America. Both bear their round or ovoid male catkins at the ends of the slender terminal branchlets; the ovoid cones, either terminal or on short lateral twigs, have thick woody scales dilated at the extrem- ity, with a broad disk depressed in the centre and usually furnished with a short spine ; at the base of the scales are from three to seven ovules, which become reversed or partially so by compression, ripening into small angular seeds with a narrow wing-like expansion. The redwood of the Californian woodsmen, S. semper- virens, which may be regarded as the typical form, abounds on the Coast Range from the southern borders of the State northwards into Oregon, and, according to De Candolle, as far as Nootka Sound. It grows to a gigantic size : a trunk 1 Itin. Lat. (Soc. de 1'Or. Lat.), 1879, i. pp. 309-320. 2 Palmer, in the chapter contributed by him (mainly from Arabic sources) to Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin (by W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, London, 1871), has failed to give, with rare excep- tions, any clue to the date of the writers whose statements he embodied. 8 Reflections in Palestine, London, 1884, pp. 1-3. See also Quarterly Report of Palestine Exploration Fund for 1883, p. 69 ; and Sir J. W. Dawson's Egypt and Syria, their Physical Features in Relation to liible History, London, 1885, pp. 85-95, where two illustrations of the hill are given. has been recorded 270 feet in length, and a greater height is said to be occasionally reached, while a diameter of from 12 to 15 feet is sometimes attained at the base. In old a Sequoia sempervirens a, green cones and catkin ; b, section of cone ; c, scale of cone. age the huge columnar trunk rises to a great height bare of boughs, while on the upper part the branches are short and irregular. The bark is red, like that of the Scotch fir, deeply furrowed, with the ridges often much curved and twisted. When young the tree is one of the most graceful of the conifers : the stem rises straight and taper- ing, with somewhat irregular whorls of drooping branches, the lower ones sweeping the ground, giving an elegant conical outline. The twigs are densely clothed with flat spreading linear leaves of a fine glossy green above and glaucous beneath ; in the old trees they become shorter a.nd more rigid and partly lose their distichous habit. The globular brown catkins appear early in June ; the cones, from 1 to 2 inches long, are at first of a bluish green colour, but when mature change to a reddish brown ; the scales are very small at the base, dilating into a broad thick head, with a short curved spine below the deep trans- verse depression. The redwood forms woods of large extent on the seaward slope of the Coast Range and occurs in isolated groups farther inland. From the great size of the trunk and the even grain of the red cedar-like wood it is a valuable tree to the farmer and carpenter : it splits readily and evenly, and planes, and polishes well; cut radially, the medullary plates give the wood a fine satiny lustre ; it is strong and durable, but not so elastic as many of the western pines and firs. In England the tree grows well in warm situations, but suffers much in severe winters, its graceful form rendering it ornamental in the park or garden, where it sometimes grows 30 or 40 feet in height ; its success as a timber tree would be doubtful. In the eastern parts of the United States it does not flourish. Discovered by Menzies in the end of the 18th century, it has long been known in British nurseries under the name of Taxodium sempervirens. The only other member of the genus is the giant tree of the Sierra Nevada, S. gigantea, the largest of known conifers ; it is confined to the western portion of the great Californian range, occurring chiefly in detached groups XXL 85