120 ESSAYS. 



diameter, upon the trunks of whieh he found inscriptions that 

 had been made by former visitors three centuries before ; 

 that, by cutting through three hundred annual layers, he dis- 

 covered the vestiges of these inscriptions upon the wood, thus 

 proving that they were actually made at the date assigned ; 

 that, by measuring the thickness of these layers, he ascer- 

 tained the actual increase of the trunk during the last three 

 centuries ; that, having thus obtained the rate of growth in 

 old age, and having, by actual inspection of young trunks, 

 learned the rate of growth during the first hundred years, he 

 deduced from these combined data the almost inevitable con- 

 clusion, that the trees in question were five or six thousand 

 years old. 1 



Let us compare this with Adanson's own statements, from 

 which it purports to have been taken. His first account, 

 which comprises all the principal facts in the case, is given 

 in the " Voyage au Senegal," prefixed to his volume on nat- 

 ural history of that country, which was published soon after 

 his return to France, in 1753. Adanson simply relates, that, 

 on his visit to the Madelaine Islands, he found Baobab-trees 

 of five or six feet in diameter, which bore European names 

 and dates, deeply engraven upon the bark. Two of these he 

 took the trouble to renew, one of which was dated in the fif- 

 teenth, the other in the sixteenth century. The characters 

 were about six inches in length, and as in breadth they occu- 

 pied but a small part of the circumference of the trunk, 

 Adanson reasonably inferred that they were not engraven in 

 the early youth of these trees. He had previously seen, on 

 the island of Senegal, trees of the kind, which were sixty- 

 three and sixty-five feet in circumference ; but he does not 

 intimate that he inspected the laj^ers of wood in any case. 

 He merely remarks that these inscriptions might furnish 

 some evidence respecting the age which Baobabs sometimes 

 attained ; " For," says he, " if we suppose that the inscriptions 

 were engraven even in the early years of these trees, and that 



1 See Alphonse De Candolle, in " Bibl. Univ.," xlvi. p. 389. (Aug. 

 Pyr. De Candolle, Phys. Veg., ii. p. 1003. Moquin-Tandon, Teratol. Veg., 

 p. 107.) 



