118 ESSAYS. 



under the most favorable circumstances) during the whole 

 of the first century, we should thereby reduce the estimated 

 age to a thousand years. By the same computation, the Cy- 

 press at Atlisco would be 3480 years old. ; or 2390 years, if 

 we allow it the maximum rate of growth for the first century. 

 So, likewise, the great Cypress at Santa Maria del Tule would 

 be 5124 years of age, or 4024 years, with the aforesaid de- 

 duction. The latter accords perfectly with De Candolle's 

 minimum estimate ; and it is the lowest age that, in the pres- 

 ent state of our knowledge, can possibly be assigned to this 

 prodigious tree, upon the supposition that its trunk is really 

 single. 



We are obliged to pass unnoticed those trees of unknown 

 species, but of surprising size, which the learned and enthu- 

 siastic Professor Martius visited in the interminable woods 

 that border the Amazon, and of which he has recently pub- 

 lished such a spirited account. 1 Their trunks were so huge 

 that the outstretched arms of fifteen men were required to 

 grasp them ; and so lofty, as to mock every effort for obtain- 

 ing even a leaf or flower, by which the species might be de- 

 termined. As to their age, Martius offers only a conjectural 

 estimate. 



The Baobab, or Monkey-Bread (Adansonia digitata), of 

 Senegal and the Cape de Verde Islands, has long afforded 

 the most celebrated instances of vegetable longevity. The 

 tree is remarkable for the small height which it attains, com- 

 pared with the diameter of the trunk or the length of its 

 branches. Trunks which are seventy or eighty feet in cir- 

 cumference rise to the height of only ten or twelve feet, when 

 they divide into a great number of extremely large branches, 

 fifty or sixty feet in length, which, spreading widely in every 

 direction, form a hemisphere or hillock of verdure, perhaps 

 one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and only seventy in 

 elevation. To this peculiarity, rather than to the nature of 

 the wood, which is light and soft, the great longevity of the 

 tree is probably owing, its form opposing an effectual resist- 



1 " Flora Brasiliensis," Tab. Physiog., ix. ; " Arbores ante Christum 

 natum enatae." 



