188 LIFE OF A TREE. 
the warmer and more comfortable halls and 
refectory of the monastery. By counting up 
the concentric lines on the section of the trunk 
of the Yew-tree, it has been found that they 
increase about the twelfth of an inch a year 
in diameter. Therefore by our ascertaining 
simply the diameter of the trunk, we are able 
to tell pretty accurately the antiquity of the 
entire tree. It has been supposed that these 
Yews are about twelve hundred years old. 
The Fortingal Yew, represented in the accom- 
panying cut, is one of the largest and oldest 
trees in Scotland. It stands in the churchyard 
of Fortingal, a beautiful district lymg in the 
heart of the Grampian mountains. This pro- 
digious tree, as we are informed, was measured 
by the traveller Pennant, and found to be fifty- 
six feet and a half in circumference. It is now 
decayed down to the ground, and, as is shewn 
in the cut, there is sufficient space in its interior 
for the passage of a funeral procession, it being 
an old custom for the dead to be carried through 
the hollow, solemn-looking tree, in their passage 
to the resting-place where the rich and the poor 
rest together, and where the last remains of our 
