88 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF CELEBRATED TREES. [June 



Nothing of this kind, however, was ever published by Adanson. 

 His first account, which comprises all the principal facts, is given in 

 the Voycujc au Senegal, prefixed to his volume on the natural history 

 of that country, and published soon after his return to France in 

 1753. Adanson simply relates that on his visit to the Madelaine 

 Islands, he found Baobab trees of 5 or 6 feet in diameter, which 

 bore European names and dates deeply engraven on the bark. Two 

 of these he took the trouble to renew, one of which was dated in 

 the fifteenth, the other in the sixteenth century. The characters 

 were about G inches in length, and as in breadth they occupied but 

 a small part of the circumference of the trunk, Adanson reasonably 

 inferred that they were not engraven in the early youth of these 

 trees. He had previously seen in the island of Senegal trees of the 

 kind, which were 6 3 and 6 5 feet in circumference ; but he does 

 not intimate that he inspected the layers of wood in any case. He 

 merely remarks that these inscriptions might furnish some evidence 

 respecting the age which the Baobabs sometimes attained : " For 

 (says he) if we suppose that the inscriptions were engraven even in 

 the early years of these trees, and that they have grown to 6 feet in 

 diameter in the course of two centuries, we may calculate how many 

 centuries they would require to attain the full diameter of 25 feet." 

 Soon afterwards Adanson communicated to the Eoyal Academy of 

 Sciences at Paris a full account of the Baobab, which was published 

 in their Memoirs for the year 1761 ; and lastly, he wrote the article 

 " Baobab " for the supplement of the great FrencJi Encydo])cedia, 

 published in the year 1776. These accounts, although more detailed, 

 embody no essential additions to what had been already given. He 

 says that the trees in question were two in number, upon the bark 

 of which the names of Europeans were engraved, with dates, some 

 posterior to the year 1600 ; and others, as far back as 1555, were 

 probably the work of those who accompanied Thevet, who in his 

 voyage to Antarctic lands saw some of these trees that same year on 

 a small island close to the Cape de Verde. Some of the dates 

 appeared to be previous to 1500, but these were somewhat equi- 

 vocal. Neglecting therefore the indistinct dates in the fourteenth 

 century, continues Adanson, and even allowing that the inscriptions 

 were made when the trees were very young, which is highly improb- 

 able, as they occupied less than an eighth of the entire circumfer- 

 ence, it is evident that if the Baobab has attained 6 feet in diameter 

 between 1555 and 1749, that is in two hundred years, it would 

 require more than eight centuries to attain the diameter of 25 feet, 

 supposing tlie growth to continue at a uniform rate. But Adanson 

 goes on to say, that trees grow the more slowly as they advance in 

 age, so that such an estimate would fall below the truth. As to its 



