CELEBRATED TEEES. 175 



forty-five feet in circumference ; the second is forty-four. 

 Many of them are scarred with travellers' names/ If 

 the most ancient of the Cedars now growing on Mount 

 Lebanon are contemporaries of King Solomon's treeSj 

 they would be more than 3000 years old ! The Cedar 

 is known to grow to a great age, and tree life has been 

 known to extend much beyond 3000 years, so that the 

 hypothesis is not an unreasonable one, that the existing 

 Cedars of Lebanon were growing when the Temple at 

 Jerusalem was being built. — Ed. 



One of the noblest trees on record is tlie Chest- 

 nut upon Mount Etna, called the Gastagna de cento 

 cavalli. It is still alive, but has lost muchi of its 

 original dignity. Many travellers take notice of it. 

 Brydone was one of the last who saw it. His 

 account is dated about sixteen or seventeen years 

 ago.* It had tlien the appearance of five distinct 

 trees. The space within them, he was assured, 

 had once been filled with, solid timber, when tlie 

 whole formed only one tree. The possibility of 

 this lie could not at first conceive, for the five 

 trees together contained a space of two hundred 

 and four feet in circumference. At length, how- 



* Gilpin wrote this, it must be remembered, in 1791. — Ed. 



