No. 124.] 147 



to be sufficient to supply the world, and the auxiliary materials neces- 

 sary for its manufacture have long been known to be inexhaustible. 

 The beds of iron ore in Essex county, in this State, have produced 

 iron of a quality not to be surpassed. Many specimens were exhi- 

 bited at the meeting. 



February Ithj 1844. 

 WOOD. 



Present, thirty-two members. 



Prof. Mapes, Chairman. H. Meigs, Secretary. 



The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved. 



Mr. Meigs. — The great age attained by some trees is very interest* 

 ing. Claudius James Kirk, British agent at Bagdad, found on the 

 ruins of Babylon, an old tree, which he states to have stood probably 

 eighteen hundred years. I wish to hear Mr. Brown on the age of 

 trees. 



Mr. Glen. — Some of the trees of England are 600 years of age. 

 There are trees in India many centuries old. Some of the cedars of 

 Lebanon are of great age. 



Chairman. — Refers to Holzapffel's account of the ages of trees. 



Mr. Brown. — There are some authentic records of great ages of 

 trees. I examined one in TenerilFe, the dragon tree, yielding the 

 dragon's blood of the shops. That tree is believed to be four thou- 

 sand years old. It is forty-five feet in circumference and is now 

 hollow. 



There is in the city of Mexico, a deciduous cypress, of forty feet 

 in circumference. From the accounts given of the dragon tree of 

 TencrifFe, it was coeval with the primitive inhabitants, the Guanches, 

 and must be two thousand years old, at least. 



Decandole thinks that the cypress of Mexico, must be two thou- 

 sand years old. 



The great Linden tree of Nieustadt, Germany, is fifty-three feet in 

 circumference. At the height of fifteen feet, it branches out one 

 hundred feet on each side, and these branches are supported by one 

 hundred and eight pillars of stone and of wood. There are stairs 

 made for persons to ascend it, small gardens are made among the 

 limbs, and their produce sold to the visitors. This tree is supposed 

 to be two thousand years of age. 



The Wallace Oak, of England, is one thousand years old. The 

 great chesnut of Chatsworth, is believed to be fifteen hundred years 

 of age. There are oaks in America, of five hundred and eighty-three 

 years of age. The two white oak trees of Flushing, Long Island, 

 called the Fox Oaks, by their rings are 483 years old. The Law- 

 rence oak, of Flushing, is estimated to be 500 years of age, it is 

 eighteen feet in circumference, and its branches cover an area of one 

 hundred feet in diameter. Our white pine trees count from 200 to 

 300 years of age. Black oak is found to be 430 years. 



