434 THE INDIAN FOREST SURVEY. [Nov. 



an object of veneration among the natives. After the conquest, at 

 the close of the fifteenth century, the trunk was employed as a 

 boundary in dividing the lands, and as such is mentioned in ancient 

 documents. It had changed very little since that period, until the 

 summer of 1819, when a third of its spreading top was carried 

 away by a tempest. But it still continues to vegetate, and its- 

 remaining branches are annually crowned, as they have been each 

 returning autumn, perliaps for several thousands of years, with its 

 beautiful clusters of white, lily-like blossoms — emblems of " the 

 eternal youth of nature." In regard to its real age, however, the 

 usual means of investigation are defective, on account of the want 

 of annual layers or rings ; and apart from liistoric evidence, we can 

 only form a somewhat conjectural estimate, by a comparison w^ith 

 yonng trees of the same species. M. Berthelot, who assiduously 

 devoted many years to the study of the civil and natural history of 

 the Canary Islands, and who has therefore attempted the comparison 

 under the most favourable circumstances, declares that the calcula- 

 tions he has made, upon the supposition that the trunk has increased 

 in size even at the rate of young dragon trees up to within the last 

 800 or 1000 years, have more than once confounded ms imagina- 

 tion. We cannot therefore but assign the very highest antiquity to 

 such a tree, which the storms and casualties of four centuries have 

 scarcely changed, and conclude that in the vegetable kingdom there 

 are many living antiquities, compared with which the celebrated 

 pyramids of Egypt are but the mushrooms of a single day's duration. 



THE INDIAX FOREST SURVET. 



By Major F. Bailey, Eoyal Engineer, F.E.G.S., Superintendent of 

 Forest Surveys in India. Ptead to the Geographical Section, 

 British Association, at Aberdeen, 11th September 1885. 



IN his paper on the " Progress of Forestry in India," printed in 

 the Transactions of the Scottish Arhoricultural Society for 1884, 

 Mr. Brandis, formerly Inspector-General of Forests to the Govern- 

 ment of India, writes as follows : — " The long period of peace, of good 

 and just government which followed the consolidation of the 

 British Indian Empire, the construction of railways and other 

 public works, and the rapid increase of trade and prosperity, have 

 contributed much to accelerate the destruction of the forests of 

 India. Over large districts and entire provinces the forests have 



