358 Visit to Mount Etna — Age of a Chestnut Tree. 



in my opinion, which stands within a few hundred yards of that 

 celebrated tree ; it is the Oastagno la Nave, a noble patriarch 

 of the forest. This tree rises in an unbroken stem for about 

 forty feet, then divides and throws out lateral branches to an 

 enormous extent. It appeared to me, as I viewed it, to be 

 comparatively a young tree, from the vigour of its growth and 

 absence of decayed branches. I was accompanied by a friend, 

 and after contemplating with admiration this splendid specimen 

 of the vegetable kingdom, we proceeded to measure it with a 

 surveying tape, and at four feet from the ground it measured 

 fifty-four feet in circumference. I need scarcely add that I 

 entered this measurement in my note-book. I took a drawing 

 of the Castagno di cento Cavalli, which shows almost beyond 

 a doubt, that this never was a single trunk, but a group ; but 

 from some cause, which I do not now remember, I neglected 

 to add its noble companion to my other sketches ; but I after- 

 wards saw at Messina a very beautiful drawing of this tree, 

 in the portfolio of my friend Lieut. Wright, of the Royal 

 Staff Corps. 



On reading Murray's Handbook of Sicily, which has been 

 recently published, it is there stated that this very tree was 

 carefully measured within the last year, and was found to be 

 fifty-seven feet in circumference at three feet from the ground, 

 nearly at the same height that I measured it, thus showing an 

 increase in girth of three feet in fifty-three years. If, there- 

 fore, we take for granted that the growth was the same every 

 fifty-three years, the calculation makes the tree now 1007 years 

 old ; the following formula will show it more clearly : — 



If 3 ft. 53 years 57 ft. 



53 



171 



285 



3)3021 



1007 years. 



But if we presume that the tree increased in bulk somewhat 

 more than three feet in fifty- three years in the early period of its 

 growth, which by the by does not appear to be generally the 

 case, for I have examined the annual rings in the trunks of 

 many newly cut down trees, and found them on an average of 

 equal thickness throughout, except towards the south or sunny- 

 side, where they are generally thicker, on the same principle 

 that plants grown in a window will always increase more 



