90 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF CELEBRATED TREES. [June 



full-grown trees, project out on every side to such a distance that 

 several men might easily hide themselves in the hollows between. 

 Each pilaster terminates under ground in a very large, strong 

 serpentine root, which strikes off and branches every way just under 

 the surface of the earth ; and from these roots grow woody cones, 

 called Cypress knees, 4, 5, and 6 feet high, and from 6 to 18 inches 

 and 2 feet in diameter at their bases. The large ones are hollow, 

 and serve very well for beehives. A small space of the tree itself 

 is hollow, nearly as high as the buttresses already mentioned. 

 From this place the tree, as it were, takes another beginning, form- 

 ing a great straight column, 80 or 90 feet high ; when it divides 

 every way round into an extensive, flat, horizontal top, like an 

 umbrella, where eagles have their secure nests, and cranes and 

 storks their temporary resting-places ; and what adds to the magni- 

 ficence of their appearance, are the streamers of long moss that hang 

 from the lofty limbs, and float in the winds. In favourable situations 

 this tree sometimes attains the height of 120 or 140 feet, and a 

 circumference of from 20 to 40 feet, when measured quite above 

 the singularly dilated base. Michaux measured one in the United 

 States, the trunk of which was 40 feet in circumference, or 12|- feet in 

 diameter, above the conical base, which was three or four times greater 

 still. A tree of this kind in the gardens of Chapultipec, in Mexico, 

 is called the Cypress of Montezuma, because it is said to have been 

 already a remarkable tree when that unfortunate Prince was on the 

 throne in 1520, or three and a quarter centuries ago : it still retains 

 all the vigour of youthful vegetation. According to Mr. Ward, the girth 

 of the trunk is about 41 feet ; Mr. Exeter, however, makes it 45 ; but 

 the height is so majestic as to make this enormous mass appear 

 light and graceful. Another tree in the same neighbourhood was 

 38 feet in circumference. But these are greatly surpassed by 

 one at tlie village of Atlisco, in the intendancy of Puebla, which was 

 first described by the Archbishop Lorenzana. He states that the 

 cavity of the trunk, for the tree is hollow, might contain twelve or 

 thirteen men on horseback ; and that in the presence of the Arch- 

 bishop of Guatemala and the Bishop of Puebla, more than a hundred 

 boys entered it. According to Humboldt the girth of the trunk is 

 upwards of 23 metres, or 76 English feet, and the diameter 

 of the cavity about 16 feet. But a still more gigantic Cypress 

 is that which stands in the churchyard of the village of Santa Maria 

 del Tule, in the intendancy of Oaxaca, 2^ leagues east of that city, 

 on the road to Guatemala by the way of Tehuantepec. In its 

 neighbourhood there are five or six other trees of the kind, which 

 are nearly as large as the Cypress of Montezuma, but which this one 

 as much surpasses as that does the ordinarv denizens of the forest. 



