THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 105 



monks, being the first of this Monastery of Fountains ; with 

 whom they withdrew into this uncouth desert, without any 

 house to shelter them in that winter season, or provisions to 

 subsist on, but entirely depending on Divine Providence. 

 There stood a large Elm in the midst of the vale, on which 

 they put some thatch or straw, and under that they lay, ate, 

 and prayed ; the Bishop for a time supplying them with 

 bread, and the rivulet with drink. But it is supposed that 

 they soon changed the shelter of their Elm for that of seven 

 Yew-trees growing on the declivity of the hill on the south 

 side of the abbey ; all standing at this present time [1658], 

 except the largest, which was blown down about the middle 

 of the last century. They are of an extraordinary size ; the 

 trunk of one of them is twenty-six feet six inches in circum- 

 ference at the height of three feet from the ground ; and 

 they stand so near each other as to form a cover almost equal 

 to a thatched roof. Under these trees, we are told by tradi- 

 tion, the monks resided till they built the monastery ; which 

 seems to be very probable, if we consider how little a Yew- 

 tree increases in a year, and to what a bulk these are grown." 

 (Burton, Monast., fol. 141.) 



We have Pennant's measurements of one of these trees, 

 taken in 1770, giving it a diameter of eight feet five inches, 

 or 1212 lines. Hence, according to De Candolle's rule, it 

 was then 1200 years old. 



The fine Yew at Dryburgh Abbey, which is supposed to 

 have been planted when the abbey was founded, in 1136, and 

 which is in full health and vigor, has a trunk only twelve feet 

 in circumference ; its estimated age would, therefore, be less 

 than six hundred years. 



The " Ankernyke Yew," near Staines, a witness of the con- 

 ference between the English barons and King John, and in 

 sight of which Magna Charta was signed (between Runny- 

 mede and Ankernyke House), and beneath whose shade the 

 brutal Henry the Eighth first saw gospel light in Anna 

 Boleyn's eyes, measures twenty-seven feet eight inches in cir- 

 cumference, and should therefore be 1100 years old, which is 

 about the age that tradition assigns to it. The trunk of the 



