1G8 lUSTOUICAL NOTICE OF CELEBRATED TREES. [July 



time the surface of the tree was nearly entire at the base, although 

 upon one side all the interior had decayed. Afterwards the cavity 

 reached the opposite surface, and the trurdc at length separated into 

 two distinct semicircular portions, dead and decaying within, but 

 alive and growing at tlie circumference, between which funeral 

 processions passed on their way to the grave. In this condition it is 

 figured by Strutt in his Sijlvcc Scotica. In summer 1833 one of 

 these half trunks had disappeared, with tlie exception of some decayed 

 portion that scarcely rose above the soil ; but the other still sliot 

 forth branches from its summit, giving a diameter of more than 15 

 feet, so that the circumference of the bole, when entire, must have 

 exceeded 50 feet, as stated by Barrington and Pennant. Consider- 

 able spoliation had been committed on the trees since 1769, large 

 arms having been removed, and masses of the trunk itself carried off 

 by the country people with the view of forming quechs or drinking- 

 cups, and other relics, which visitors were in the habit of purchasing. 

 To prevent further depredations, an iron rail was placed around it. 

 I believe it is now dead. Had it still existed, it could scarcely 

 have been less than 2600 or 2700 years old, dating its origin from 

 about 800 years before the Christian era. 



The Pine. 



The fir or pine tribe attain to a great size, and are of rapid growth 

 when young, although they afterwards increase but slowly. They 

 are also of unexampled height ; indeed, their mode of growth, their 

 straight regularly tapering trunks, carried steadily upwards by the 

 continual prolongation of the leading shoot, as well as the small 

 lateral extension of their branches, is extremely favourable to lofti- 

 ness of stature, and to full development in the midst of the forest. 

 Loisleur mentions a larch in Le Vallais in Switzerland, which was 

 12 feet in diameter, or upwards of 37 in girth. Its age was about 

 576 years. The Scotch fir does not appear to attain to so large a 

 size. I have, however, heard a friend (Sir "W. Hooker) mention that 

 he saw a plank at Gordon Castle of great length, and which 

 measured 5 feet across in every part, and which the noble owner 

 assured him had been cut from a tree 18 feet in circumference that 

 grew in the forest of Glenmore, at the foot of the Cairngorm moun- 

 tains. The annual layers were so thin and close that it was impos- 

 sible to count them. It is mentioned in the statistical account of 

 Scotland that there was then (in 1795) at Woodhouselee a silver 

 fir [Pinus jpicea) which had been planted in 1701, and which in 

 1759, at 4 feet from the ground, measured 7 feet 4| in circumfer- 

 ence, and in 1793, 11 feet 1 4:-5th inch; it thus increased in girth 



