The Forest Trees of Wiltshire. 



163 



winds of that stormy region ? Yet, even in this case reason must 

 give way, for unless King David's dictum that " all men are liars," 

 is to be taken in its fullest sense, the general truth of the state- 

 ments concerning them cannot be doubted. Other parts of the 

 world furnish very large trees. Africa has the Baobab, the 

 greatest circumference of which is stated to be eighty feet, but 

 then its trunk is not above fifteen or twenty feet high, with an 

 enormous round head, so uniform that it is equal balanced on all 

 sides. Trees of immense size are also found in many other parts 

 of the world. — The Cypress in Central America: — The Plane, 

 one of which at Bukukdere, on the European shore of the Bos- 

 phorus, measured a hundred and forty-one feet in circumference at 

 the base, in 1831.— The Pinus Douglasii has been found of the 

 height of two hundred and thirty feet, with a trunk fifty feet in 

 circumference at the base ; and a Pinus Lambertiana, two hundred 

 and fifteen feet long, and fifty-seven feet in circumference at the 

 base : — both these on the banks of the Columbia river, in North 

 America. Then, coming nearer home, Sicily has its famed " Castagno 

 de Cento Cavalli, — the Chestnut of a hundred horses," — being 

 large enough to contain that number : be that as it may, the trunk 

 is said to measure two hundred and four feet in circumference. 

 But this last is not, and from the description of it, never was a 

 lofty tree. It is the height of the " Father of the Forest," more 

 than double that of the " Douglasii," and not the size of the trunk 

 of the Wellingtonias that excite so much wonder and incredulity, 

 To add to that wonder, these trees are said to stand on high ground, 

 and in the open. Were they growing in the rich soil of some very 

 deep dell, protected all round, or on almost all sides from the blasts 

 of rude Boreas, the case would be very different. Nevertheless, 

 full belief in the general truth of the accounts given by so many 

 eye-witnesses, is firm and unshaken in the mind of the writer. 



In conclusion, the writer begs to say a few words more on the sub- 

 ject generally. A more pleasing one to the lover of nature cannot 

 be ; and not only pleasing but instructive and elevating as well. 

 "Where can more rational pleasure be found than in a ramble in a 

 forest or in a park, or through the fields, roads and lanes of a well- 



VOL. X. — NO. XXIX. L 



