LETTER VII. 



57 



5. In the Brazils, in one of the primaBval forests, 

 there are some trees supposed to be Courbarilsy which, 

 in respect of size, are truly collossal, and, in respect 

 of age, have been variously computed at from 2000 

 to 4000 years. " JN'ever before (says Martins) had I 

 beheld such enormous trunks. They looked more like 

 living rocks than trees ; for it was only on the pinnacle 

 of their bare and naked bark that foliage could be 

 discovered, and that at such a distance from the eye 

 that the form of the leaves could not be made out." 

 Fifteen Indians, with outstretched arms, could only 

 just embrace one of them. At the bottom they were 

 eighty-four feet in circumference, and sixty feet where 

 the boles became cyhndrical.* 



6. Another tree which has recently been described 

 in certain of the American journals is too remarkable 

 to be passed over. It is a Cedar^ growing in one of 

 the valleys in the county of Calaveras, in Cahfornia. 



Level with the ground, its circumference is ninety- 

 two feet ; at a height of four feet, it is eighty-eight 

 feet ; at fourteen feet, it is sixty-four feet, and so i^ 

 gradually diminishes. Its height is 285 feet. There 

 is nothing misshapen about it. On the contrary, from 

 top to bottom, it is a model of symmetry, elegance and 

 grace appearing to be conditions of its greatness, and 

 its collossal proportions only awakening in the spectator 

 ideas of the subhme and the majestic. The age of this 

 * The Gardener's Chronicle for January 25, 1845. 



