- THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 123 



which when counted numbered over 1,200. Supposing one of 

 these markings to have been formed each year, then this tree was 

 at least 1,200 years old. 



Recently, in conversation with an American expert, who was 

 employed by his Government to obtain information generally on 

 the giant trees cf America and elsewhere, I found that his idea of 

 their age agreed with that I had formed. 



In California there are some giant trees, belonging to the 

 Sequoia family, varying from 70 to 120 feet in girth. Only about 

 eighteen of them were now left. They are carefully protected, 

 and are to be allowed to live their natural life until they die and 

 decay away. Experts who have studied them have come to the 

 conclusion that they are fully 1,800 years old. In Victoria the 

 giant trees are regarded as so much firewood, and little is known 

 regarding them. 



Nearly all the Victorian giant trees which have come under 

 my notice have the tops broken off, with signs of decayed timber 

 coming down. Once decay sets in through old age, shrinkage 

 seems to follow. We have an instance of this in " Uncle Sam " 

 on the Blacks' Spur beyond Fernshaw. Some thirty-five years ago 

 this tree measured 40 feet in girth at 6 feet from the ground, 

 when I measured it some ten years ago it was only 36 feet. Its 

 height, taken with a theodolite, was 250 feet, with a broken top, 

 and very much decayed. My impression is that at the age of 

 from 1,200 to 1,500 years, decay and skrinkage set in. 



Let me now give some particulars of trees we have known. 

 The first to attract public attention was a Blackbutt, E. pilularis, 

 which I named " Uncle Sam," on the Black Spur, and which, in 

 consequence of being close to the road traversed every day by 

 Cobb and Co.'s coaches, soon became an object of public 

 interest. This tree was 40 feeth in girth and 250 feet high, with 

 a broken top. 



Another blackbutt, " Big Ben," I discovered, and also named, 

 is situated about a mile and a half from " Uncle Sam," and 

 measured 57 feet in girth and over 250 feet high. The tree 

 which was felled for the purposes of the Paris Exhibition stood 

 on a hill to the south of " Big Ben," and was christened " Billy 

 Barlow " by the splitter who found it. The fiat butt of " Billy," 

 about 20 feet in diameter, is all that now remains to mark the 

 place where once he stood defying the storms of centuries. 



At " Tommy's Bend," about seven miles beyond Marysville, 

 there is still to be seen the ashy shell of what was once a very big 

 tree, supposed to have been about 60 feet in girth. A few miles 

 beyond, at Cumberland Creek, we have the two newly discovered 

 giants. These are situated in sheltered valleys at an altitude of 

 about 2,600 feet. One of them, a White Manna Gum, E. 

 viminalis, measures 58 feet in girth at 6 feet from the ground. 



