No. 149.] 337 



The Saxon peasant, without any other penalty over him, ex- 

 cept public reprobation, never utters an oath or uses indecent 

 language even in the beer shop. 



Music. — They love the Valse, and walks under their magnifi- 

 cent rows of trees. 



(Our ancestors could hardly have been any better than our 



modern brother Saxon.) 



MEIGS. 



The rich Saxon proprietors do not believe that Greek, Latin 

 and German literature, with some notions of law and the study 

 of all those ridiculous things, called among us, good manners, 

 are sufficient for the education of a man of the w^orld. 



Revue Hoi'iicole, Paris. 



Immense Trees. — I translate the following : " The Baobab of 

 Senegal — (Adansonia digitata.) The Bald cypress of Oaxaca 

 (Taxodium disticlium), and the famous chestnut of Etna, have 

 been often cited as the giants of the vegetable kingdom. But 

 these sovereigns are dethroned and put into the second rank by 

 those lately discovered in Tasmania, which leave far behind 

 them those antique monuments of nature. Last week I went to 

 see the two largest trees existing in the world. Both of them are 

 on the borders of a small stream tributary to the river of North 

 Bay, in the rear of Mount Wellington. They are of the species 

 named there Swamp Gum, I and my companions (five of us) 

 measured them. One of them had fallen, we therefore easily 

 obtained its dimensions. We found its body 220 feet from the 

 ground to the first branch. The top had broken off and partly 

 decayed, but we ascertained the entire height of the tree to have 

 been certainly 300 feet. We found the diameter of the base of 

 it to be 30 feet, and at the first branch 12 feet. Its weight w^as 

 estimated to be about 440 tons. The other tree now growing 

 without tlie least sign of decay, resembles an immense tower ri- 

 sing among the humble sassafras trees, although they are very 

 large in fact. The Gum tree at 3 feet above the ground measured 

 1 02 feet in circumterence, and at the surface ot the ground 1 50 



[Assembly, No. 149.]- - W 



