140 THE VAST. 



probably the same, though called by another provincial 

 name, 



" Last week I went to see two of the largest trees in 

 the world, if not the largest, that have ever been measured. 

 They were both on a tributary rill to the North-west Bay 

 Eivcr, at the back of Mount Wellington, and are what are 

 here called Swamp Gums. One was growing, the other 

 prostrate ; the latter measured, to the first branch, two 

 hundred and twenty feet ; from thence to where the top 

 was broken off and decayed, sixty-four feet, or two hun- 

 dred and eighty-four feet in all, so that with the top it 

 must have been considerably beyolid three hundred feet. 

 It is thirty feet in diameter at the base, and twelve at the 

 first branch. We estimated it to weigh, with the first 

 branch, four hundred and forty tons ! The standing 

 giant is still growing vigorously, without the least symp- 

 tom of decay, and looks like a large church tower among 

 the puny sassafras trees. It measures, at three feet from 

 the ground, one hundred and two feet in circumfurence ; 

 at the ground, one hundred and thirty feet ! We had no 

 means of ascertaining its height (which, however, must be 

 enormous) from the density of the forest. I measured 

 another not forty yards from it, and at three feet from 

 the ground it was sixty feet round ; and at one hundred 

 and thirty feet, where the first branch began, we judged 

 it to be forty feet ; this was a noble column indeed, and 

 sound as a nut. I am sure that within a mile there are 

 at least one hundred growing trees forty feet in circum- 

 ference." 



