CHAP. XXXIV.] CYPRESS TREES. 191 



The age of stumps and erect trunks of the deciduous cypress, 

 whether living or buried, retaining their natural position, at 

 points near the present termination of the delta, ought to be 

 carefully examined, as they might afford evidence of the minimum 

 of time which can be allowed for the gain of land on the sea. 

 Some single trunks in Louisiana are said to contain from 800 to 

 2000 rings of annual growth, and Dr. M. W. Dickeson and Mr. 

 A. Brown state, that the cypress brakes or basins, which fill up 

 gradually, give place at length to other timber ; but before this 

 happens, the buried cypress stumps often extend through a de 

 posit of vegetable and sedimentary matter twenty-five feet thick. 

 &quot; Sections of such filled-up cypress basins, exposed by the changes 

 in the position of the river, exhibit undisturbed, perfect, arid erect 

 stumps, in a series of every elevation with respect to each other, 

 extending from high-water mark down to at least twenty-five 

 feet below, measuring out a time when not less than ten fully- 

 matured cypress growths must have succeeded each other, the 

 average of whose age could not have been less than 400 years, 

 thus making an aggregate of 4000 years since the first cypress 

 tree vegetated in the basin. * There are also instances where 

 prostrate trunks, of huge dimensions, are found imbedded in the 

 clay, immediately over which are erect stumps of trees, number 

 ing no less than 800 concentric layers.&quot; 



Michaud, in his famous work on the forest trees of North 

 America, mentions that stems of this deciduous cypress ( Taxodi- 

 um distichum) are met with in Florida, and in southern Louisi 

 ana, forty feet in circumference above the enlarged base, which 

 is three or four times that size ; but such individuals dwindle to 

 nothing before the gigantic trunk near Santa Maria del Tule, in 

 the province of Oaxaca, in Mexico, which was first mentioned by 

 Exeter, who found its circumference to be 117-10 French feet. 

 Zuccarini, has lately removed the doubts of Do Candolle respect 

 ing this measurement, which was taken above the dilated base, 

 for that was no less than 200 feet in circumference. In this 

 stem there would be 5352 rings of annual growth, if one line a 

 year was taken as the average growth, the deposit of wood 



* Silliraan s Journal, Second Series, vol. v. p. 17. January, 1848. 



