TREES TIMBER. 95 



dcr the tropics, indeed, the trees generally exhibit a luxuriance of 

 vegetation which strikes European travellers with amazement; M. 

 Goudot, for example, measured a homhax {B. pentandrum) no more 

 than sixty years old, the trunk of which was 8 metres or 26| feet 

 in circumference, and whose boughs covered a circular area of 39 

 metres or 120 feet in diameter. 



There is a beautiful tree which grows in the valleys of Arragua 

 in Venezuela, the Zamang, a species of mimosa, according to Hum- 

 boldt, one of which, in particular, is greatly celebrated, and under 

 the shade of which I rested on the 24th of January, 1823. This 

 magnificent tree is to be distinguished at the distance of a league ; 

 its branches form a hemispherical crown of 187 metres or 613 feet 

 in circumference, extending like a vast umbrella, the points ap- 

 proaching to within from 10 to 16 or 18 feet of the ground. The 

 trunk of this extraordinary tree is nearly 65 feet in height and up- 

 wards of 9} feet in diameter. This tree is an object of veneration 

 with the Indians. It does not seem to have altered in its appear- 

 ance since it was first particularly noticed ; the earliest conquerors 

 of Venezuela seem to have met with it in the same state as it is at 

 the present time. When Humboldt measured the Zamang de Tur- 

 mero, its branches on one side were entirely stripped of their leaves. 

 Twenty years afterwards I found it green in every part ; but the 

 leaves and branches with the southern aspect were not so numerous 

 nor so vigorous as the others. 



The dragon-tree of Orotava in the Island of Teneriffe is one of 

 the oldest vegetable monuments of the present world. Humboldt 

 gives it a diameter of 17 feet, and its height, as stated by M. Ledru, 

 is upw-ards of 65 feet. When Teneriffe was discovered in 1402, 

 this tree appears to have had the same dimensions which it presents 

 at the present time. 



The mahogany {cedrela mahogani) is a very long-lived tree. In 

 Jamaica it sometimes acquires a diameter of upwards of 6 feet, and 

 Sir W. J. Hooker has calculated that two centuries at least are re- 

 quired to supply timber of the large scantling which w^e constantly 

 see in the yards of our timber merchants and cabinet-makers. 



The HymencEa courbaril, one of the largest trees of the Antilles, 

 yields, like mahogany, a timber that is hard and in great request 

 among cabinet-makers and inlayers. It sometimes grows to 19 feet 

 in diameter. 



The Baobab (Adansonia digitaia) lives for centuries, and acquires 

 extraordinary dimensions. Adanson saw one in the Cape de Verdes, 

 in the trunk of which an inscription was found, which was covered 

 by three hundred layers of wood ; it had been cut by two English 

 travellers three centuries before. From positive observations col- 

 lected by Adanson, a table has been constructed to show the pro- 

 gress and probable age of the baobab : 



