120 ESSAYS. 
diameter, upon the trunks of which he found inscriptions that 
had been made by former visitors three centuries before ; 
that, by cutting through three hundred annual layers, he dis- 
covered the vestiges of these inscriptions upon the wood, thus 
proving that they were actually made at the date assigned ; 
that, by measuring the thickness of these layers, he ascer- 
tained the actual increase of the trunk during the last three 
centuries ; that, having thus obtained the rate of growth in 
old age, and having, by actual inspection of young trunks, 
learned the rate of growth during the first hundred years, he 
deduced from these combined data the almost inevitable con- 
clusion, that the trees in question were five or six thousand 
years old.1 
Let us compare this with Adanson’s own statements, from 
which it purports to have been taken. His first account, 
which comprises all the principal facts in the case, is given 
in the ‘ Voyage au Sénégal,” prefixed to his volume on nat- 
ural history of that country, which was published soon after 
his return to France, in 1753. Adanson simply relates, that, 
on his visit to the Madelaine Islands, he found Baobab-trees 
of five or six feet in diameter, which bore European names 
and dates, deeply engraven upon the bark. Two of these he 
took the trouble to renew, one of which was dated in the fif- 
teenth, the other in the sixteenth century. The characters 
were about six inches in length, and as in breadth they oceu- 
pied but a small part of the circumference of the trunk, 
Adanson reasonably inferred that they were not engraven in 
the early youth of these trees. He had previously seen, on 
the island of Senegal, trees of the kind, which were sixty- 
three and sixty-five feet in circumference ; but he does not 
intimate that he inspected the layers of wood in any case. 
He merely remarks that these inscriptions might furnish 
some evidence respecting the age which Baobabs sometimes 
attained ; “ For,” says he, “if we suppose that the inscriptions 
were engraven even in the early years of these trees, and that 
1 See Alphonse De Candolle, in “ Bibl. Univ.,” xlvi. p. 389. (Aug, 
Pyr. De Candolle, Phys. Veg., ii. p. 1003, Moquin-Tandon, Teratol. Veg., 
p- 107.) 
