GIGANTIC TREE. 



145 



had grown on a steep declivity above a house, which 

 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 between 

 some large fig-trees, which would prevent it from 

 rolling down. It was eight and a half feet in diam- 

 eter at the lower end, four feet five inches at the 

 other (the top having been burnt off), and one hun- 

 dred and sixty feet in length. The rocks were mica- 

 slate passing into talc-slate, and contained masses 

 of bluish granular limestone, together with graphite. 

 At the place where the gold-mine was said to have 

 been they found some vestiges of a vein of quartz ; 

 but the subsidence of the earth, in consequence of 

 the rain, rendered it impossible to make any observa- 

 tion. The travellers, however, found a recompense 

 for their fatigues in the harvest of plants which they 

 made in the thick forest abounding in cedraelas, 

 browneas, and fig-trees. They were struck by the 

 woody excrescences, which, as far as twenty feet 

 above the ground, augment the thickness of the lat- 

 ter. Some of these trunks were observed to be 

 twenty-three feet in diameter 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 be- 

 fore a small hut, to enjoy the benefit of the sun's 

 rays, the heat of which, according to her grandson, 

 kept her alive. As they drew near to Victoria the 

 ground became smoother, and resembled the bottom 

 of a lake, the waters of which had been drained off. 

 The neighbouring hills were composed of calcareous 

 N 



