306 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [16:7— Oct., 1920 



Some people may feel that a knowledge of these things leads to 

 unhappiness. It reminds me of a story that I read a long time ago 

 about an Arab who admonished a traveller for having stepped on a 

 worm. The traveller asked the Arab if the did not know that he 

 was destroying hundreds of living beings when he ate a fig. When 

 the dusky inhabitant of the desert was shown the organisms 

 through a microscope he took the microscope and dashed it against 

 a rock. Let us not accept the philosophy that 'ignorance is bliss'. 



Trees the Oldest Living Beings 



When one stops to consider the length of life of trees one cannot 

 help being impressed. When we stood in admiration before the 

 giant Sequoias, the awe they inspired came from the thought that 

 these were vigorous young trees two thousand years ago and that 

 they still put forth their leaves and shed their cones every year. 

 There are cedars now on Mt. Lebanon that looked forth over 

 Palestine when Christ was teaching there, and they lived on to see 

 the glory of Rome fade and the teachings and commands of the 

 humble carpenter received by millions over an earth undreamed 

 of by Him. 



Perhaps the oldest of living trees is one in Mexico, a bald 

 cypress east of Oaxaca. In 1803 Humbolt visited this tree 

 which is held in great veneration by the natives. In 1903 Dr. 

 Hermann Von Schrenk made a pilgrimage to this venerable cypress 

 and found it measured breast high 126 feet in circumference and 

 he estimates that its age is perhaps 4000 years. It was probably 

 a well-grown tree when Rameses II was building the temples at 

 Luxon and Karnak — and waged his battles with the Hittites. 

 If it could talk so that we might understand what a story it 

 might tell. 



