56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



feet nine inches (girth measurements alone need be given) one hun- 

 dred and ten years later. Dr. Uvedale's cedar, planted at Enfield not 

 earlier than 1670, was fifteen feet eight inches when measured in 1835, 

 i. e., one hundred and sixty-five years afterward. And the large cedar 

 at Uxbridge, which was blown down in 1790, was one hundred and 

 eighteen years old when Gilpin measured it in 1776, and found it to be 

 fifteen feet and a half. We should therefore be justified in assuming 

 twelve feet as the possible first century's growth of a cedar even in 

 England ; whence we may test the probability of the oldest cedars now 

 on Mount Lebanon having been growing there in the days of King 

 Solomon. In the year 1696 the traveler Maundrell measured one of 

 the largest of them and found it to be twelve yards six inches. 

 Four feet a century being the average rate, the cedar measured by 

 Maundrell would have required only nine centuries to have attained 

 its dimensions of thirty-six feet ; so that it need have been no older 

 than the time of Charlemagne, and, allowing for a more rapid growth 

 on a site where it is indigenous, may probably have been considerably 

 younger. 



From the claims to antiquity of the cedars of Lebanon let us pass 

 to those of the Tortworth Spanish chestnut in Gloucestershire, which 

 sometimes boasts to be the oldest tree in England, and bears an in- 

 scription to the effect that King John held a Parliament beneath it.* 

 Sir Robert Atkyns, whose history of that county was published in 

 1712, usually bears the responsibility of connecting the tree with King 

 John ; but he only speaks of it as said by tradition " to have been 

 growing there in the reign of King John. It is nineteen yards in com- 

 pass, and seems to be several trees incorporated together, and young 

 ones are still growing up which may in time be joined to the old body." 

 It was also probably on hearsay evidence that Evelyn spoke of it as 

 standing on record that a chestnut (at Tamworth) formed a boundary 

 tree in the reign of Stephen. We may assume Evelyn to have meant 

 the tree in question ; we may pass the hesitation of tradition between 

 two kings not remote from one another in time ; and we may accept 

 fifty-seven feet as the maximum measurement, though no subsequent 

 measurement gives so high dimensions. Now, that a chestnut may 

 attain seventeen feet in its first century is proved by the fact that a 

 chestnut at Nettlecombe, planted within the recollection, and therefore 

 within the life, of Sir John Trevelyan, who died in 1828, was over 

 seventeen feet.f But we may be content with fifteen feet for the first 

 century. Then, on the principle of the third as the average, we should 

 require a period of eleven centuries for fifty-seven feet ; but that this 

 average would be too low is evident from the fact that in seventy-one 

 years — i. e., between 1766 and 1837 — it was proved to have increased 

 two feet in girth. Therefore we should have a diminishing series be- 



* Jesse, " Gleanings in Natural History," i, 341. 

 f Selby, " Forest Trees," 834 (1842). 



