148 CHRONOLOGY OF TREES. 



figures put on the tree about thirty years previous, were 

 distinctly visible, and that the rings of growth corres- 

 ponded to the date of the survey, as the Returns in his 

 ofiice showed. 



Mr. Wiltze, of the Surveyor General's ofiice, at Dubuque, 

 once informed me that the same thing had been observed 

 in that oifice, and that he once saw the marks of a survey 

 in New York, made fifty-four years previous to the time 

 when the tree was cut, and the annual layers agreed with 

 that date. We know that there are trees of great age that 

 are known in history, and that the growth must be very 

 slow. 



There is an orange tree at Versailles that is known to be 

 four hundred years old. Another, planted at St. Sabin, by 

 St. Dominic, is reputed to be more than six hundred years 

 of age, and was living in the year 1845. Also at Sancure, 

 there is a chestnut, which was planted full six hundred 

 years since. A botanist, named Alexander, saw a tree in 

 Senegal, called Basbob, on which he found the marks of a 

 traveler made three hundred years previous, and the layers 

 of wood outside the date corresponded to that period. 

 From the size of this tree, it may have been five thousand 

 years of age. We know that the Charter Oak, in Hartford, 

 Connecticut, was an old tree in 1687, and only died a few 

 years since. 



The Old Elm, in Boston Common, was a full grown tree 

 in the year 1725 — more than an hundred years since. There 

 is reported to be in Mexico a living tree, to which the 

 tradition of the people gives an age of three thousand 

 years, and, although there are such things as popular 

 errors in matters of this sort, there are also popular truths, 

 and a general belief is some evidence of truth on most 

 subjects, whether scientific or practical. 



This mode of reckoning trees has been applied to the 

 ancient mining operations of Lake Superior, over which, in 

 one case, I counted on a hemlock stump, recently cut. 



