98 
greater part of its bulk is composed of a soft watery tissue. 
The surface is made up of a number of ridges bearing numerous 
clusters of spines. These trunks grow at the rate of about six 
inches per year, hence the larger examples must be more than a 
century old, It was impossible of course to ship branching speci- 
mens, and attention was devoted to those under fourteen feet in 
length, six of which were secured. The largest of these, slightly 
less than the above measurement, weighed about a thousand 
pounds. The services of six men were required to dig out the 
Fic, 17. A portion of a forest of Cerees gigantens (Saguaro) near Tucson, Arizona. 
roots of such a plant and to lower it to the ground without 
breaking the spines or bruising the epidermis. Measurements 
against damage by a packing of the tips of the branches of creo- 
sote bush (Covi//va), which is abundant in the same region. By 
this method it was possible to transport heavy specimens to New 
York without serious damage. Somewhat sensational reports 
having been circulated in the daily press that this fine tree is in 
