BIOGRAPHY. 71 



huge mass of stone is now eight inches above the ground 

 and is entirely supported by the stem of the nut-tree, 

 which has risen to the height of twenty-live feet, and 

 bears excellent fruit." 



When I saw it in 1862, however, the tree had been dead 

 for some time, the millstone having evidently killed it, not 

 by its weight, but by preventing the flow of sap through 

 the bark. It would, of course, have been more picturesque 

 to have drawn the tree in a living state and of its full 

 height, but I thought it better to give it exactly as I 

 saw it. Mr. Edmund Waterton once told me that when 

 a boy he often climbed the tree in search of nuts, which 

 it then bore plentifully. 



It is a most valuable object, inasmuch as it shows in a 

 striking manner the tremendous powers of Nature, which are 

 continually being exerted, and which we, as a rule, do not 

 even suspect. The late Charles Kingsley mentions that he 

 has seen a large flat stone raised off the ground in a single 

 night by a crop of tiny mushrooms, and I quite lately saw 

 some weighty kerbstones in a crowded London thoroughfare, 

 which had been forced completely out of their places by 

 grass-blades which had grown between their junctions. 



