STUDY XI. 203 



fcarcely fucceeds there, (lie placed it on a tree 

 which in thofe regions attains magnificence from 

 it's adaptations. 



I have eaten of the fruit of the cheftnut-tree of 

 the Iiland of Corfica. It is as large as fmall hen's 

 eggs, and makes excellent food. You may read, 

 in a modern traveller, the defcription of a cheft- 

 nut-tree, which grew in Sicily, on one of the 

 ridges of Mount iEtna. It's foliage is of fuch ex- 

 tent, that a hundred cavaliers could repofe with 

 eafe under it's (hade. For that reafon it obtained 

 the name of centum cavallo. Father Kir cher allures 

 us, that he had feen, on the fame mountain, in a 

 place called 'îrecaflagne, three cheflnut trees of fuch 

 a prodigious fize, that when they were felled, you 

 might have lodged a large flock of fheep under 

 covert of their bark. The (hepherds employed 

 them for this purpofe, in the night-time, and in 

 bad weather, inftead of penning up their charge 

 in the fold. Nature has granted, to this (lately 

 vegetable, the faculty of collecting, on the deep 

 mountains, the waters of the Atmofphere, by means 

 of leaves formed like fo many tongues ; and of 

 penetrating, by means of it's (lurdy roots, down 

 to the very bed of fountains in defpite of lavas and 

 rocks. 



Nature 



