The Characteristics of Living Creatures 709 



had 2,425 annual rings when it was killed, and must have begun to 

 live 525 years before the Christian era. "We have," wrote Pro- 

 fessor W. R. Dudley, "deep ill their annual rings, records which 

 extend far beyond the beginnings of Anglo-Saxon peoples, be- 

 yond even the earliest struggles for liberty and democracy among 

 the Greeks records of forest conflagrations, of the vicissitudes 

 of the seasons, of periods of drought and periods of abundant and 

 favouring rains." In our conception of life we must not forget 

 these sublime instances of its power to endure. 



VOL. Ill 10 



