44 THE STORY-BOOK OF SCIENCE 



"That, however, is not more than half the age that 

 some other trees of the same kind have attained. 

 A yew in a Scotch cemetery measured twenty-nine 

 meters around. Its probable age was two thousand 

 ii\v hundred years. Another yew, also in a ceme- 

 tery in the same country, was, in 1660, so prodigious 

 that the whole country was talking about it. They 

 reckoned its age then at two thousand eight hundred 

 and twenty-four years. If it is still standing, this 

 patriarch of European trees bears the weight of 

 more than thirty centuries. 



"Enough for the present. Now it is your turn 

 to talk." 



"I like better to be silent, Uncle Paul," said Jules. 

 ' * You have upset my mind with your trees that will 

 not die." 



' 1 1 am thinking of the old yew in the Scotch ceme- 

 tery. Did you say three thousand years?" asked 

 Claire. 



"Three thousand years, my dear child; and we 

 might go still further back, if I were to tell you of 

 certain trees in foreign countries. Some are known 

 to be almost as old as the world." 



