CELEBEATED TREES. 169 



of using it in his works, ordered it to be laid up 

 as a curiosity. It measured a hundred and twenty 

 feet in length, carrying a diameter of two feet 

 to the very end.* When this Larch was alive, 

 with all the furniture of its vast top and gigantic 

 limbs in proportion to such a trunk, it must have 

 been an astonishing tree. 



The largest tree that ever was known to be 

 brought into Britain formed the mainmast of the 

 ' Royal Sovereign,' in Queen Anne's time. It was 

 ninety feet long, and thirty-five inches in dia- 

 meter, t 



Mr. Evelyn, from whom we have this account, 

 mentions in the same place a still larger tree, 

 which formed the keel of the ' Crown,' a French 

 ship of the last century. It was a hundred and 

 twenty feet long, which is the length of Tiberius's 

 Larch, though it had not probably the circum- 

 ference of that tree. 



The masts of our ships of war, at present, are 

 never made of single trees. It is the method to 

 lay two or three trees together, and, fitting them 



■ * Plin. Nat. Hist., 1. xvi. c. 40. j ^ylva, p. 228. 



