36 S Y L V A BOOK in 



in another place of a pine about Ida, which measured 

 24 foot diameter, and of a monstrous height : To 

 these may be added the arbor de Rays, a certain tree 

 growing in the East-Indies, which propagates it self 

 into a vast forest (if not hinder'd) by shooting up, 

 and then letting a kind of gummy string to fall and 

 drivle from its branches, which takes root in the 

 ground again, and in this process spread a vast circuit, 

 the single stem of some of which are reported to be 

 no less than fifty foot diameter, a thing almost incred- 

 ible. To this may be added the balete described by 

 Mr. Ray, (append. 3d vol.) and what he cites of 

 Melckion Barros, who found trees proof against 

 weapons, resisting the force of any edg'd tool, being 

 of a consisture so hard : But even this, and all we 

 have hitherto produced, is nothing to what I find 

 mentioned in the late Chinese History (as 'tis set forth 

 upon occasion of the Dutch Embassy) where they 

 tell us of a certain tree call'd ciennich (or the tree of a 

 thousand years) in the province of Suchu, near the 

 city Kien, which is so prodigiously large, as to shrowd 

 200 sheep under one only branch of it, without being 

 so much as perceiv'd by those who approach it. And 

 to conclude with yet a greater wonder, of another in 

 the province of Chekiang, whose amplitude is so 

 stupendiously vast, as fourscore persons can hardly 

 embrace : These gigantick trees, the Chinese-timber 

 merchants transport on floats, upon which they build 

 huts and little cottages, where they live with their 

 families, floating many thousand miles till all be sold, 

 as Le Compte tells us : In the mean time we must 

 not omit the strange and incredible bulk of some oaks 

 standing lately in Westphalia, whereof one serv'd 

 both for a castle and fort ; and another there which 



