90 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



which has been sometimes supposed to be San Eernando 

 Noronha, sometimes the Peiiedo de San Pedro, and some- 

 times the problematical Island of St. Matthew. This last- 

 named island was discovered by Garcia Jofre de Loaysa on 

 the 15th of October, 1525, in 2 S. lat,, in the meridian 

 of Cape Palmas, almost in the Gulf of Guinea. He remained 

 there eighteen days at anchor, found crosses, as well as orange 

 trees which had been planted and had become wild, and on 

 two trunks of trees inscriptions dating back ninety years. 

 (Navarrete, T. v. pp. 8, 247, and 401.) I have examined the 

 questions presented by this account more in detail in my in- 

 quiries into the trustworthiness of Amerigo Vespucci. (Exa- 

 men critique de 1'hist. de la Geographic, T. v. pp. 129-132.) 

 The oldest description of the Baobab (Adansonia digitata), 

 is that given by the Venetian Aloysius Cadamosto (the real 

 name was Alvise da Ca da Mosto), in 1454. He found at 

 the mouth of the Senegal, trunks of which he estimated the 

 circumference at seventeen fathoms, or 102 feet, (Eamusio, 

 Vol. i. p. 109) : he might have compared them with Dragon 

 trees which he had seen before. Perrottet says in his 

 "More de Senegambie" (p. 76), that he had seen monkey 

 bread-trees which, with a height of only about 70 or 80 feet, 

 had a diameter of 32 English feet. The same dimensions 

 had been given by Adanson, in the account of his voyage in 

 1748 ; the largest trunks which he himself saw (in 1749) 

 in one of the small Magdalena islands near Cape de Verd, 

 and in the vicinity of the mouth of the Senegal River, were 

 from 26 to 28J English feet in diameter, with a height of 

 little more than 70 feet, and a top about 180 feet broad; 



