102 ESS A YS. 



measured. We have little faith, however, in this particular 

 identification ; nor do we place confidence in the rate of growth 

 of old Cedars, as deduced from the measurement of these trees 

 at different periods. For, could we be sure that any two of 

 these measurements were actually taken from the same trunk, 

 it is still very unlikely that they were made at the same height 

 from the ground, — a matter of great consequence, but which 

 is left out of view in the records of the early travelers. But 

 the girth of the larger trees being known by various measure- 

 ments, and the average rate of growth of young Cedars being 

 approximately determined from individuals that have grown 

 in Europe, of well ascertained age and size, — such, for in- 

 stance, as those in the Chelsea Botanic Garden, near London, 

 planted in 1683, and the fine tree which adorns the hill in the 

 Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and which was brought from 

 England in 1734 by Bernard de Jussieu, — carried, it is 

 said, in the crown of his hat for greater security, whose trunk, 

 at its centennial anniversary, had just attained the circumfer- 

 ence of ten feet, — we only need to know the thickness of the 

 outer layers of these remarkable old trunks, or, in other 

 words, their actual and recent rate of increase, in order to 

 form a highly probable estimate of their age. By a few care- 

 ful incisions into these trunks, the next traveler into the now 

 frequented East, who feels interested in such questions, might 

 supply this remaining desideratum, without real injury to 

 these renowned natural monuments, or just exposure to the 

 Patriarch's anathema. 



From such very imperfect data as we now possess, De 

 Candolle deems the trees measured by Rauwolf to have been 

 at least six hundred years old ; which would give the age of 

 nearly nine hundred years to any of the number that may 

 still survive. This estimate may fall considerably below the 

 truth ; but our present knowledge will not warrant the as- 

 sumption of a higher one. Doubtless, this remarkable forest 

 has existed from primeval times, while the oldest individuals, 

 from age to age, have decayed and disappeared. But vener- 

 able as are the present representatives, which La Martine so 

 grandiloquently apostrophizes, and conceives to have existed 



