168 



THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



improvement in book-illustrating which can hardly be suffi- 

 ciently appreciated. 



Wood must have supplied one of the earliest materials 

 with which to erect buildings ; the Grecian styles of 

 architecture, beyond doubt, were derived from imitating in 

 stone those structures first made of wood. All the largest 

 members of the vegetable kingdom belong to this division ; 

 and indeed the same may be said of size which has been 

 said of age, namely, that there is no limit except from 

 accidental circumstances. 



FIG. 23. WELLINGTONIA GIGANTEA. 



In the Crystal Palace at Sydenham is a most wonderful 

 and gigantic specimen of the Wellingtonia Grigantea (fig. 23), 

 one of the class of trees called coniferous, and belonging to 

 the exogens, the bark of which has been stripped off in 



