In Big Sur during the 1870s and 1880s, locally quarried limestone was smelted in four huge wood-fired kilns, then packed into barrels and cabled from the canyon to the beach and out to schooners at Rockland Cove for use in building construction in San Francisco and Monterey. This early industry consumed redwoods as fuel for the kilns and as material for lime barrels. Along the Pacific Coast, the only place on Earth where native redwoods grow, these ancient trees were long treated as a commercial resource prized for abundant lumber, striking color, and resistance to rot, yet some old-growth trees survived and are now protected in perpetuity in Big Sur's state parks, wilderness areas, Mill Creek Redwood Preserve, and Big Creek Reserve. Coast redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens, are the tallest trees on Earth, often rising more than 300 feet and reaching 20 feet or more in diameter, but despite their power in Big Sur's rugged coastal landscape they remain vulnerable to lightning, fire, high winds, soil erosion, drought, and especially the axe. In the late 19th and early 20th century, loggers across the West Coast profited from the immense lumber in each tree, and those nearest wagon roads and ports were cut first, but Big Sur's steep terrain, poor or nonexistent roads, and tiny dog-hole ports helped spare many remote old-growth groves. Redwoods depend on abundant moisture, and in foggy Big Sur their branches wick water directly from the mist and funnel it to the ground, creating their own rainfall, while their shallow roots absorb thousands of gallons of fog water; diminishing fog patterns caused by climate change now threaten their survival.