TEE AGE OE NEW ZEALAND. 
441 
west, and India on the east, that this continent was broken 
up into islands, of which some became amalgamated with 
what is now Asia, and that in Madagascar and the Mascarene 
Islands we have existing relics of that great continent. 
The age of trees may also be used as a minor proof of 
antiquity. There are trees in Africa and South America said 
to be from five to six thousand years old (probably they may 
be half that age), as the Baobab of the one, and the Taxodium 
of the other, but in Australia the largest specimens of the 
vegetable kingdom are to be found. The Ficus Macrophyllus, 
called the Moreton Bay fig, is remarkable for its colossal pro- 
portions ; an example gro wing on the Manning River, exhibited 
a bulk superior to any of the Baobabs of Africa or Chestnuts 
of Etna, in fact, larger than any tree with a single stem which 
has ever been mentioned by travellers ; it is a peculiarity of 
this tree to throw out buttresses of wood all round the trunk ; 
as they do not grow in contact with each other, it would be 
unfair to give the measurement of a line drawn round them 
for the dimensions of the tree, but at six feet from the ground 
the circumference of the real cylindrical part of the trunk was 
sixty-six feet, measured as if the tape had passed through 
the projecting parts ; at the same height, if the buttresses 
had been included, the measurement would have been 'one 
hundred and ten feet, and at half the height three hun- 
dred ; the partitions would have afforded stalls for the horses 
of a squadron of dragoons. The Australian cedar has been 
found with a circumference of forty feet, but in the report of 
the Commission appointed by the Government of Victoria, 
it is mentioned, that near the source of the western branch 
of the Wori Yallock Creek, a tree (Eucalyptus amygdalinaj 
was measured which had been felled, it was three hundred 
and thirty feet long in a straight line, with a diameter of 
nineteen at the base, and nine at seventy feet from the butt 
end • many of the adjacent standing trees were evidently of 
much greater height than this. 
Nor must the trees of New Zealand be omitted. The 
Kauri (Damara Australis) attaining a height of two hundred 
feet, with a circumference of forty; this great shaft rising 
