FAMOUS TREES OF THE WORLD. 29 
as to appear but one tree; another, “The Riding School,” 
has been blown down by a terrible storm which swept 
over the valley. It has a hollow stem into which a 
horse may be ridden for seventy-five feet and turned 
around. 
These trees stand in groups, and many of them attain 
four hundred feet in height. Judging from the rings 
found within those that have been felled, they are 
mostly three thousand years old. Dr. Bigelow tells of 
one which he measured : “ Eighteen feet from the stump 
it was fourteen and a half feet in diameter. As the 
diminution of the annual growth from the heart or cen- 
tre to the outer circumference or sapwood appeared in 
regular succession, I placed my hand midway, measuring 
six inches and carefully counting the rings on that space, 
which were one hundred and thirty, making the age of 
the tree, by this computation, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and eighty-five years.” As to its size, he says, “ It 
required thirty-one paces, three feet each, to measure its 
circumference, making ninety-three feet ;’ and to fell it 
they were obliged to use pump augurs and bore it. It 
took five men twenty-two days to lay it low, and the 
mere cutting down cost over five hundred dollars. 
It is said there are five hundred of these gigantic 
trees within an area of fifty acres, ninety of which are 
of colossal size. 
At Chapultepec, Mexico, there is an American cypress 
which, when the Spaniards entered the country, in 1520, 
was called “The Cypress of Montezuma,” being then of 
immense size, over forty feet in girth and one hundred 
and twenty in height. And the province of Oakaca, in 
the same country, shows the cypress which sheltered 
Cortez and his troops, still in fine condition. According 
to De Candole, these trees are four thousand years old. 
A chestnut-tree still grows upon Mount Etna, called 
by the natives “ Castagna di Cento Cavalla,” because a 
hundred horsemen can be concealed in its interior; be- 
