1885.] HISTORICAL NOTICE OF CELEBRATED TREES. 91 



Humboldt, on the authority of his informant M. Anza, states tlie 

 trunk to be 36 metres, or 118 English feet in circumference; and a 

 more complete account of it has been given by Mr. Exeter, accord- 

 ing to whom it is 46 varas, or 122 English feet, which indeed 

 differs very little from Humboldt's measurement. In neither case 

 is it said at what height above the ground the trunk was measured. 

 But M. Galeotti, who visited it in 1839 and 1840, again measured 

 it carefully, and found the circumference of the trunk at the height 

 of 4 feet above the surface of the soil to be 105 French feet or 1 1 2 

 English feet. The previous measurements must therefore have been 

 taken somewhat nearer the base. The tree is about 120 feet high, 

 and as yet shows no signs of decay — there is not even a single dead 

 branch on it — although it bears less foliage in proportion to its size 

 than its younger companions. It is an object of great veneration 

 with the natives of the village and the neighbouring Indians, who 

 in former times, it is said, offered sacrifices to it. I\Ir. Exeter states 

 that it is mentioned by Cortez in his history of the conquest of 

 Oaxaca, as at that time the greatest wonder he had seen, and the 

 shade of which sheltered the whole of his little army of Europeans 

 from the intolerable heat of the sun ; of this, however, there are 

 some doubts, the Cypress passed by Cortez on the march to Mexico 

 being a different one, which is still traditionally associated with his 

 name. The enormous branches that spring out of the trunk, some 

 30 feet high, make it appear (as several other smaller ones in the 

 neighbourhood also do) as if there were three or four trees united, 

 although as one entire bark encircles the grand trunk, there is little 

 doubt of its being a single tree. Mr. Exeter reports, and the 

 observations of recent travellers to some extent confirm the state- 

 ment, that there are Cypresses near the ruins of Palenque, equal in 

 size to the tree at Sante Maria del Tule. Such may indeed claim a 

 much higher antiquity than the very ruins they overshadow. They 

 must have witnessed the rise, the flourishing existence, the decline, 

 and the final extinction of a race whose whole liistory has sunk into 

 oblivion ; of it, it may almost be said : 



" Its cold and lengthened tracts of shade 

 Rose on the day when sun and stars were made." 



But the real age is unknown. De Candolle, by ascertaining the 

 rate of growth of the same tree in France during half a century, con- 

 jectured that the American trees, in their early days, increase at the 

 rate of about 1 foot in diameter every fifty years ; and this rate is 

 quite as high as American observers allow for those grown in the 

 forests of the United States, but it seems much too low for trees 

 planted in open favourable situations. This rate, however, would 



