THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 115 



feet, at the height of four feet above the surface of the soil. 1 

 The previous measurements, therefore, were taken somewhat 

 nearer the base. The tree as yet shows no signs of decay, 

 although it bears less foliage in proportion to its size than 

 its younger fellows. But we find no authority for Mr. Exter's 

 statement, that this tree was mentioned by Cortes, and that 

 its shade once afforded shelter to his whole European army. 

 Perhaps he had in some way confounded it in his memory 

 with a Cypress which the Conquistador passed on the march 

 to Mexico, and which is still traditionally associated with 

 his name. 2 



Mr. Exter reports, and the observations of recent travelers 

 to some extent confirm the statement, that there are Cypresses 

 near the ruins of Palenque, equal in size to the tree at Santa 

 Maria del Tide. If this be so, they may claim a much higher 

 antiquity than the ruins they overshadow. They must have 

 witnessed the rise, the flourishing existence, the decline, and 

 the final extinction of a race whose whole history has sunk 

 into oblivion ; while they are still alive. 



By what means can we ascertain the age of large Cypress- 

 trees ? Some years since, when Professor Alphonse De Can- 

 dolle — the son and worthy successor of the botanist who has 

 rendered that name illustrious — attempted to answer this 

 question, the only evidence within his reach was drawn from 

 the rate at which trees of the kind had grown in France during 

 half a century. He inferred that the American Cypress, in 

 its early days, increases at the rate of about a foot in diameter 

 every fifty years ; and the estimate, although surely much too 

 low for trees planted in favorable open situations (which have 

 even been known to add annually an inch to their diameter 

 for a series of years, both in Europe and in the United States), 

 is yet quite as high as our own observations will allow for 

 those which grow in their native forests. This rate would 

 give to the Cypress of Montezuma the age of about seven cen- 

 turies, and would render that at Oaxaca scarcely coeval with 



1 " Bulletin de l'Acad. Roy. des Sciences de Bruxelles," 1843, torn. x. 

 p. 123. 



2 See Prescott's " History of the Conquest," i. p. 404. 



