LETTER II. 



19 



copious in supplementary details. In works of this 

 kind especially, even more than in systematic treatises 

 on Botany, one might expect to find the desired infor- 

 mation. My o.wn examination of them, however, has 

 been to no purpose. They enter largely into the 

 history of all or most of our British trees, and into 

 that of many foreign trees ; and they abound in details 

 of exceedino* interest reo^ardino; those that are most 

 remarkable for their age or size, their historical asso- 

 ciations, their beautiful forms or fantastic shapes, their 

 modes of growth, &c. But they are absolutely barren 

 of information bearing on the questions before us. 

 They give us no insight into the allotted duration and 

 size of trees. They do not even acquaint us what the 

 extreme limit is to which their lives may be protracted, 

 or the extreme height and thickness to which they 

 may attain. 



11. The fact indeed appears to be, and it is one 

 which stands out in striking contrast with the particu- 

 lars furnished by Balfour, Richard, De Candole, and 

 others, as to the ao-e and size of trees, that in many 

 different parts of the earth there are individual in- 

 stances of almost all kinds of trees, which have not 

 merely already stood as many years and grown to as 

 great a size as any of their species have ever been 

 known to do, but (which is peculiarly remarkable, and 

 indeed singularly striking), are still vigorous and 

 growing, and as yet exhibit no signs of what can pro- 



