166 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



England, where a room was built of it at the famous 

 Crystal Palace Exhibition. The girdling of the tree 

 having caused it to die, it was decided to fell it and 

 manufacture souvenirs of the wood. The tree was 

 thirty feet through at the base, and upwards of 

 three hundred feet high, and to cut down such an 

 arboreal giant with axes seemed impracticable, so 

 a plan was conceived to bore it down with pump 

 augurs. This proceeding occupied five men twenty 

 days. Even then the work was not completed, for 

 so squarely did the dissevered trunk rest upon the 

 stump that it refused to fall, and two more days 

 were consumed in inserting wedges to break up the 

 equilibrium. Then Nature took pity on man and 

 one noon, while the workmen were at dinner, a gust 

 of wind caught the crown and brought the forest 

 mammoth crashing and roaring to the ground with 

 a force that caused the earth to tremble as from an, 

 earthquake. A count of the rings showed an age 

 of about 1,300 years. The fallen log was smoothed 

 on the upper side and upon it a ten-pin alley, eighty- 

 one feet long, and a barroom were constructed. 

 Upon the stump, which measured twenty-five feet 

 across, a pavilion was erected, and for a time re- 

 ligious services were held there on Sundays. On 

 weekdays it was used as a dancing floor, and I be- 

 lieve still so serves, though the absence of "spring'* 



