THE BALD CYPRESS 59 



subsequently broken by the progressive aridity of the great belt 

 of dry country of northern Mexico and our border States. 



Among these Mexican trees there are a number of extraordinary 

 size that have attracted the attention of all travelers. Among 

 these is the cypress of AtHxco described by Humboldt, the cypress 

 of Montezuma at Chapultepec which was a notable tree four cen- 

 turies ago. Another cypress in the village of Popatela near Mexico 

 City, is noted for its association with Cortez at the time of his 

 reverses during the Conquest, and is picturesquely named Arbol 

 de la Noclie Triste. 



The most famous of these Mexican cypress, the largest one known, 

 and perhaps the oldest living tree in the world is the great cypress 

 of Santa Maria del Tule in the village of that name near the capital 

 of the State of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. This remarkable tree^ 

 a photograph of which serves as a frontispiece of the present work^ 

 was described by Humboldt in 1803, who affixed a plate in one side 

 12 feet from the base, and now nearly entirely grown over. There 

 have been a number of measurements of this famous tree in addi- 

 tion to those of Humboldt. Probably the most accurate are those 

 made by von Schrenk, to whom I am indebted for the accompany- 

 ing photograph, and who visited Santa Maria del Tule just one 

 hundred years after Humboldt's visit. The diameter of the trunk 

 of this old giant above the swollen and buttressed base was slightly 

 over 41 feet, and the estimated age of the tree has been placed as 

 between four thousand and six thousand years. 



It is held in great veneration throughout the country-side as it 

 should be, and seems to be perfectly vigorous and healthy notwith- 

 standing its great age. It is hard to picture an organism that has 

 been growing since before the flowering of Greek civilization and 

 perhaps antedating the first dynasty of Egypt. A tree associated 

 with the Maya culture, which has come and gone, with the empire 

 of the Aztecs, with the coming of the Conquistadores, the Colonial 

 period, and, I was about to add, the Petroleum period. If ever 

 misfortune overtakes this patriarch among trees it is to be hoped 

 that some scientist will happen along and measure its growth 

 rings, for they would shed much light on the climatic fluctuations 



