34 S Y L V A BOOK in 



observer notes) in Binsey Common, six yards diameter 

 next the ground, which 'tis conjectur'd has been so 

 improv'd by raising an earthen bank, or seat about it, 

 which has caus'd it to put forth into spurs ; it not 

 being so considerable in the higher trunk. 



7. Compare me then with these, that nine fathom'd- 

 deep tree spoken of by Josephus Acosta; the mastick- 

 tree seen and measur'd by Sir Francis Drake, which 

 was four and thirty yards in circuit ; those of 

 Nicaragua and Gambra, which 17 persons could 

 hardly embrace : Among these may come in the 

 cotton-tree describ'd by Dampier. In India (says 

 Pliny) arbores tantae proceritatis traduntur^ i 1 sagittis 

 superarl nequeant^ (and adds, which I think material, 

 and therefore add also) haec Jacit ubertas soli^ temperies 

 caeli^ & aquarum abundantia. Such were those trees 

 in Corsica, and near Memphis, fife, recorded by 

 Theophrastus, &c. and for prodigious height, the two 

 and three hundred foot unparalleled palms-royal 

 describ'd by Captain Ligon, growing in our planta- 

 tions of the Barbadoes ; or those goodly masts of fir 

 which I have seen and measur'd, brought from New- 

 England ; and what Bembus relates of those twenty- 

 fathom'd Antartic-trees ; or those of which Cardan 

 writes, call'd Ciba, which rising in their several stems 

 each of twenty foot in compass, and as far distant 

 each from other, unite in the bole at fifteen foot 

 height from the ground, composing three stately 

 arches, and thence ascending in a shaft of prodigious 

 bulk and altitude : Such trees of 37 foot diameter (an 

 incredible thing) Scaliger (his antagonist) speaks of, 

 ad Gambrae flifoium. Matthiolus mentions a tree 

 growing in the Island of Cyprus, which contain'd 

 i 30 foot high sound timber : And upon Mount ./Etna 



