542 THE UNIVERSE. 



The life of animals is quite ephemeral compared to 

 that of our trees. ]\Iinute investigations have thrown 

 considerable light upon the chronology of many of them. 

 Some of them live commonly 200 or 300 years. 



The pine and great chestnut can assuredly extend 

 their existence to a term of 400 or 500 years. In the 

 island of Teneriffe are found many venerable pines and 

 enormous chestnut-trees, which in all prolmbility Avere 

 planted there by the Conquistadores at the commencement 

 of the fifteenth century, the epoch of the invasion of this 

 island. The former, the Finns canariensis, are distin- 

 guishable from the others, owing to the conquerors having 

 in their piety decorated them nearly all with little ma- 

 donnas, which are still seen suspended to their boughs. 



Tlie lime-tree of Morat, planted at Fribourg on the 

 day of the celel^rated battle, is one of the oldest trees in 

 Europe. This glorious event in the history of SAvitzerland, 

 having occurred in the year 1476, the venerated tree, 

 Avhich is encircled by a colonnade, and of Avhich the aged 

 liranches are upheld by a frameAvork of Avood, must be 

 now nearly 400 years old. 



The fir attains a still greater age. In some of the most 

 ancient forests of Germany, situated on the summit of the 

 Wurzell^erg in Thuringia, as many as 700 annual layers 

 have been counted on some of the trees cut doAvn there. 



The olive-tree, so revered in ancient Greece, and AAdiich 

 inspired such l:)eautiful verses in the tragedy of jEdipus 

 hj Sophocles, reached a much greater age, according to 

 the ancient myth. Pliny even asserts that in his time 

 the celebrated oHve-tree Avhich MinerA'a caused to spring 

 from the ground at the epoch of the foundation of the 

 city of Cecrops Avas still to be seen in the citadel of 

 Athens. 



