1 UK STORY-BOOK OF SCIENCE 



"Xeustadt, in Wiirttemberg, has a linden whose 

 branches, overburdened by years, are held up by a 

 hundred pillars of masonry. The branches cover all 

 together a space 130 meters in circumference. In 



1229 this tree was 

 already old, for 

 writers of that 

 time call it 'the 

 big linden. ' Its 

 probable age to- 

 day is seven or 

 eight hundred 

 years. 



11 There was in 

 France, at the be- 

 ginning of this 

 century, an older 



White Oak * 



tree than the vet- 



teran of Neustadt. In 1804 could be seen at the 

 castle of Chaille, in the Deux-Sevres, a linden 15 

 meters round. It had six main branches propped 

 with numerous pillars. If it still exists it cannot be 

 less than eleven centuries old. 



"The cemetery of Allouville, in Normandy, is 

 shaded by one of the oldest oaks in France. The 

 dust of the dead, into which it has thrust its roots, 

 seems to have given it an exceptional vigor. Its 

 trunk measures ten meters in circumference at the 

 base. A hermit's chamber surmounted by a little 

 steeple rises in the midst of its enormous branches. 

 The base of the trunk, partly hollow, is fitted up as 

 a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Peace. The 



