316 Contributions to Physical Geography. 



though vigorous and of great size, had lost their extremities, 

 and upon the whole the mass of foliage bore no proportion to 

 the stem or stems. This was not the only giant of the same 

 family ; for at the distance of 400 yards we saw two other 

 chestnut- trees of vast size, and of greater beauty than the Cen- 

 to CavallL One of them, consisting of two stems in close con- 

 tact and from the same root, measured 24 feet in diameter, 

 and was quite sound ; the other measured 15 feet in diameter, 

 but was entirely hollow, and presented within tlie singular ap- 

 pearance of several young stems, five or six inches in diame- 

 ter, joining at top the hollow trunk, and looking like stalac- 

 tites in a cavern. Probably when the inside of the tree, whol- 

 ly decayed, had become vegetable earth, roots shot into it and 

 down into the ground below ; but in process of time that earth 

 was washed away, and these internal roots exposed to the air, 

 became so many stems, and ultimately young trees within the 

 old one. Half a mile from these stood a fourth chestnut-tree, 

 shattered above, but its stem quite sound, and that stem up- 

 wards of 70 feet in circumference. The soil in which all these 

 trees grew was of a dark reddish brown or chocolate colour, 

 very loose and penetrable. The fruit of the Cento Cavalli is 

 rather smaller, and otherwise not quite so good as that of the 

 other trees. This region of vegetable wonders is no less than 

 4000 feet above the sea. 



3. Account of the Falls of Niagara. 



" I had already seen some of the most celebrated works of na- 

 ture in different parts of the globe; I had seen iEtna and Vesuvi- 

 us; I had seen the Andes almost at their greatest elevation ; Cape 

 Horn, rugged and bleak, buffeted by the southern tempest ; 

 and, though last not least, I had seen the long swell of the 

 Pacific ; but nothing I had ever beheld or imagined could 

 compare in grandeur with the falls of Niagara, My first sensa- 

 tion was that of exquisite delight at having before me the 

 greatest wonder of the world. Strange as it may appear, this 

 feeling was immediately succeeded by an irresistible melan- 

 choly. Had this not continued, it might perhaps have been 

 attributed to the satiety incident to the complete gratification 

 of ' hope long deferred ;' but so far from diminishing, the 



