Thk Plane. 



which ought to be left wholly to men ; never broke up 

 councils, or frustrated political arrangements and plans 5 

 never squandered away a wretched people's earnings, either 

 in] decorating lierself or creating fortunes for her minions. 

 Happy subjects of Xerxes ! and success, say I, to those 

 Sovereigns who are fond of trees, and who prefer them to 

 goddesses made of corrupt flesh and blood, whether the 

 goddesses be fat or lean. 



464. The Occidental Plane does, perhaps, surpass in 

 height and size that of the East. In America its common 

 name is the Button wood, from the form of the ball con- 

 taining its seed, a particular description of which I shall 

 give by-and-by. To hear this vulgar, pitiful name, one 

 would imagine that the tree must be but a pitiful tree ; 

 yet,, it is the largest tree in the world 5 and as will 

 by-and-by be seen, its seed is very little bigger than that of 

 the lettuce plant. Miller speaks of an Occidental Plane 

 that had been known in America, to be thirty-six feet round; 

 MxcHAUX speaks of one, which was measured by himself 

 and his travelling companion, and which they found on 

 the right bank of the Ohio, thirty-six miles from Marietta, 

 which measured, at four feet from the ground, forty-seven 

 feet in circumference ; and, of course, the diameter of which 

 was fifteen feet and eight inches. If this tree had been 

 hollowed out, and a round table put in the centre of it, 

 a greater company than that of Caligula might have 

 feasted in this vegetable dining-room. The elder Michaux 

 measured another tree, which was forty feet four inches 

 round at five feet from the ground ; which latter tree be- 

 came renowned from General Washington having mea- 

 sured it twenty years before. Michaux says that this tree 

 is seen in the mixed woods with a trunk several feet in 

 diameter at the height of sixty or seventy feet ; and that it 



