Dr. Noesden's Accoimt of the Banyan-Tree. 131 



fact, in the natural history of the tree, and most carefully set forth by 

 Theophrastus, is not adverted to by Strabo. 



I have hinted that, in some particidars, the Corypha wmbracuUfera, or 

 Great Fan Palm, may have been confounded with the Fkus Indica, or 

 Banyan. In a passage of Diodorus Siculus, where a large kind of Indian 

 tree is spoken of, the Fan Palm seems to have been intended by the author. 

 It is in the seventeenth book of his History, where the exploits of Alex- 

 ander are related :* " The king," he says, " having with his army passed 

 " the river, proceeded through a country extremely fertile. For it pro- 

 " duced different species of trees, of uncommon size, some having a height 

 " of seventy cubits, and such thickness in the stem, that four men could 

 " not fathom it, and making a shade of three acres." Neither the height 

 (about one hundred and twenty feet), nor the circumference of the stem 

 (about twenty-four feet), nor the extent of shadow (about three hundred 

 feet), can be reconciled with particulars, which have before been adduced 

 as characteristic of the Banyan-tree. 



The Banyan-tree, however, is undoubtedly alluded to in the following 

 passage of Arrian. It is in that portion of his works, which is entitled 

 Indian History. He is speaking of the Indian sophists, the wise men, or 

 Fakirs, of ancient India, and continues thus :t " These sophists go naked, 

 " and live in the open air, in winter, exposed to the sun ; and in tlie 

 " summer, when the sun is overpowering, they retire to meadows, and 

 " marshy places, under large trees, whose shade, Nearchus says, extends to 

 " five acres in a circle : and ten thousand men may be sheltered under one 

 " tree ; of such astonishing dimensions are those trees." From the words 

 of the original it would seem, that the five acres (or five hundred feet) 

 mentioned, are to be taken for the radius of the circle, which would for 

 the circumference give nearly the same measure, that, according to Strabo, 



* Biblloth. Histor. Lib. XVII. T. II. p. 230. lin. 73. ed. Wessel 'Ai/to; Je /xtra -r^s Imi-niui; 



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