170 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF CELEBRATED TREES. [July 



only 3 feet." Perhaps 3 yards are meant, although even that gives 

 a small diameter for so great an elevation. Mr. Douglas, after whom 

 the species is named, — for although noticed by Lewis and Clarke as 

 a piece of timber, it was unknown to botanists till lately, — has since 

 completely confirmed the accounts already given of it, and even 

 mentions trees as high as 230 feet, with a circumference of 50 feet 

 at the base. Another species in the southern districts of same part of 

 the country, and North California, and first observed by the same Mr, 

 Douglas, is equally extraordinary, perhaps more so because they do 

 not form a thick forest, but are rather scattered at considerable 

 distances over the plains. This is the Pinus Lamhcrtiana : " At 

 mid-day," says Douglas in his journal, " I reached my long-wished- 

 for pines, and lost no time in examining them, and endeavouring to 

 collect specimens and seeds. ISfew and strange things seldom fail to 

 make strong impressions, and are therefore frequently overrated ; so 

 that lest I should never see my friends in England to inform them 

 verbally of this most beautiful and immensely grand tree, I shall 

 here state the dimensions of the largest I could find amonc; several 

 that had been blown down by the wind. At 3 feet from the ground 

 its circumference is 57 feet 9 inches; at 134 feet, 17 feet 5; the 

 extreme length 245 feet. The trunks are uncommonly straight, 

 and the bark remarkably smooth for such large timber, of a whitish 

 or light-brown colour, and yielding a great quantity of l^right amber 

 gum. The tallest stems are generally unbranched for two-thirds of 

 the height of the tree ; the branches rather pendulous, with cones 

 hanging from their points, like sugar-loaves in a grocer's shop. 

 These cones, however, are only seen on the tallest trees." These 

 cones can only be got by firing at them with ball, and therefore veiy 

 few indeed have been sent in a perfect state to this country. The 

 tree alluded to by Douglas was probably the largest mass of timber 

 that ever was measured by man, and must have contained about 

 20,000 cubic feet of wood. Such a tree in this country would at 

 the time have realized about £1000 sterling. The danger in which 

 Mr. Douglas found himself from the Indians prevented him pro- 

 curing sufficient data for ascertaining the age of such trees. A 

 block from a small trunk, however, sent to England, gave fifty-six 

 annual layers in about 4i inches next the outside of the tree, so 

 that if we suppose the large tree blown down and measured by him 

 (but which he expressly tells us was inferior to many growing) to 

 have grown only at that rate throughout, it must have been 1400 

 years old when overthrown. 



But of all the pine tribe, the cedar is one of the most celebrated. 

 It is the Pinus ccdrus. Its resistance to absolute wear is not equal 

 to that of the oak, but it is so bitter that no insect will touch the 



