GIGANTIC TREE. 169 
it was apprehended it might injure in its fall, should 
the earth happen to give way. It had therefore 
been burnt near the root, and cut so as to sink be- 
tween some large fig-trees, which would prevent 
it from rolling down. It was eight and a half 
feet in diameter at the lower end, four feet five 
inches at the other (the top having been burnt off), 
and one hundred and sixty feet in length. The 
rocks were mica-slate passing into talc-slate, and 
contained masses of bluish granular limestone, to- 
gether with graphite. At the place where the gold 
mine was said to have been, they found some ves- 
tiges of a vein of quartz; but the subsidence of 
the earth, in consequence of the rain, rendered it 
impossible to make any observation. The travellers, 
however, found a recompense for their fatigues in 
the harvest of plants which they made in the thick 
forest abounding in cedrelas, browneas, and fig- 
trees. They were struck by the woody excrescences, 
which, as far as twenty feet above the ground, aug- 
ment the thickness of the latter. Some of these 
trunks were observed to be twenty-three feet in dia- 
meter near the roots. 
At the plantation of Tuy, the dip of the needle 
was 41°6°, and the intensity of the magnetic power 
was indicated by 228 oscillations in ten minutes. 
The variation of the former was 4° 30’ N.E. The 
zodiacal light appeared almost every night with ex- 
traordinary brilliancy. 
On the 11th, at sunrise, they left the plantation 
of Manterola, and proceeded along the beautiful 
banks of the river. At a farm by the way they 
found a negress more than a hundred years old, 
seated before a small hut, to enjoy the benefit of the 
