1868.] DE SOLA — THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 449 



gretted that cupidity and vandalism have led men to hew down 

 the largest of the group, for the purpose of making a show of 

 it. One measured ninety-six feet in circumference, and afforded 

 ample space for thirty- two persons to dance on : theatrical per- 

 formances were given on it in 1835 ; it measured three hundred 

 and two feet as it lay on the ground. The so-called 'Mother 

 of the Forest' is ninety feet in circumference, and three hundred 

 and twenty- seven high. The largest, called the ' Father of the 

 Forest,' is forty-two feet in circumference and four hundred and 

 fifty high — only a few feet lower than the Pyramids of 

 Egypt. As a set-off' to this barbarity — which, be it said, no 

 where called forth greater indignation than in the United States, 

 — the Wellingtonia, * as these trees were called by the English 

 (Washingtonia by the Americans), have become acclimated in 

 England and Scotland, where their growth, first recorded in 

 inches, is now annually reported in feet. The propagation of 

 these trees lead us to examine, as points of interest in the 

 vegetable kingdom, the more general subjects of the propagation 

 of plants by nature's wondrous provisions, their fertility and 

 preservation. 



Recurring for an instant to the Diatomacese, I may here 

 remark that the existence of these minute uni-cellular organisms 

 may lead the uninitiated to doubt whether they could well 

 answer that apparently easy question, What is a plant? Fur- 

 ther investigation would show that it is difficult for the greatest 

 adept to do so, and that when it is attempted to draw a line of 

 demarcation between the primary conditions and forms of animal 

 and vegetable life, no problem in the science of nature is more 

 obscure; and the difficulty increases too with our knowledge. 

 Perhaps this may be sufficiently shown by those familiar objects, 

 the sensitive plant and the sponge. It was always held by 

 naturalists that the property or character distinguishing animals 

 from plants is feeling, which is evinced in the lower forms of 

 animal life by their shrinking from the touch. But when we try 

 vegetables as well as animals by this rule, we find many plants 

 (one example is the Mimosa pudica, or sensitive plant) endowed 

 with a far higher degree of susceptibility to external impressions 

 than is evinced by some of the lower races of animals under the 



* Dr. Torry has shewn conclusively that these trees belong to the 

 genus Sequoia. — Ed. 



