38 
CEDRUS LIBANI 
timber could be conveyed; and in those days there was no sea route known from Syria to Persia, even 
supposing them to be carried down to the Mediterranean and shipped there. The sea passage from the 
mouth of the Indus to the Tigris, on the contrary, was an easy coasting voyage, in constant use; and we 
know that the Deodar has been from time immemorial a main article of traffic on the former river. Of 
the two, therefore, in the absence of anything leading to a contrary conclusion, there can be no doubt the 
Deodar was most likely to be the timber used in the building of Nineveh; and Layard’s beam, if it be of 
Deodar Cedar, need not affect in the least our calculations as to the growth of the Cedar in Lebanon. 
We shall now turn to the growth of the Cedar in our own country. 
M. Loiseleur Deslongchamps and Mr. Loudon both took pains to contrast the growth of the well- 
known Cedar in the Jardin des Plantes, the first introduced into France (planted in 1734), with that of 
two in the Botanic Garden at Chelsea, which are believed to be the oldest in Britain (planted in 1683); 
but the comparison is marred by the Chelsea trees, during the first eighty-three years, having stood near 
a pond, into which their roots extended, and from that cause made exceptionally rapid progress. Under 
that stimulus, the trees, when eighty-three years old, exceeded 122 feet in girth at two feet from the ground, 
while the Jardin des Plantes tree, when seventy-eight years old, had only made 92 feet; but after the pond 
had been filled up, the Chelsea trees there did not add three feet to their circumference in sixty-eight 
years, or nearly as long a time as they had previously taken to grow 121, the largest being only about 
15 feet in 1834. It would also appear that two of them had had their lower branches cut in, to give light 
to an orangery before which they had been placed; and Miller tells us that they suffered so much in con¬ 
sequence, that they were scarcely half so large as the two others which had been permitted to grow at 
liberty. Which were the trees that had been so treated we do not know. 
One, and only one, of the Chelsea trees still remains, but sections of the penultimate tree are pre¬ 
served in the British Museum, so far as its decayed state would allow, and from these specimens we have 
taken the following details. A portion of the interior of the trunk, very much dry-rotted, but still holding 
together, shewed the following rate of growth, viz. : the first 10 rings occupied 14 lines; the next 10, 22 
lines; third, 17 lines; fourth, 14 lines; fifth, 13 lines; which gives an average rate of growth of 16 lines, 
or an inch and a third in ten years. 
Another specimen, which was next the bark, gives the following slower rate of growth: the first 
10 inner rings occupied 21 lines; second 10, 11 lines; third, 5 lines; fourth, 9 lines; fifth, 7 lines; or, 
taking the 30 outer rings only, an average growth of 7 lines per ten years, as opposed to 16. 
A large limb furnishes an entire section, and gives the following growths on its widest side, the 
growths on the other side being not so much developed, viz.: the first innermost 10 rings have a breadth 
of 24 lines; second, 30 lines; third, 28 lines; fourth, 22 lines; fifth, 21 lines; sixth, 182 lines; seventh, 
18 lines; eighth, 212 lines; ninth, 302 lines; tenth, 20 lines; eleventh, 18 lines; twelfth, 14 lines; thir¬ 
teenth, 1 2\ lines ; fourteenth, 9 lines ; fifteenth, 5 lines ; making a total of 153 rings, having an average of 
16 lines, as in the first specimen. 
The dimensions of the tree in the Jardin des Plantes were, according to the data supplied to us by 
M. Henri Vilmorin, as follow: in 1786, 4 feet 9 inches in girth, at 5 feet above the ground; in 1812, 
5 feet 11 inches in girth, at 6 inches from the ground (Loiseleur Deslongchamps); in 1864, 10 feet 8 
inches, at only 3 feet from the ground; in 1867, 11 feet 3 inches, at 5 feet from the ground. At the pre¬ 
sent date (1882) it is 13 feet 2 inches, at 6 feet from the ground, and its height is 52 feet 9 inches. 
These measurements do not quite correspond with those given by Loudon, which were as follows:— 
Girth at the ground : 1786, 4 feet 9 inches; 1802, 7 feet 10 inches (Dutour in Nouv. Diet. d’Hist. Nat., 
iv. 449); 1818, 8 feet 8 inches; 1834, 10 feet 6 inches (Mirbel in Return paper to Loudon); and its height 
80 feet, instead of only 46 feet 2 inches as at present. 
We prefer the measurements of M. Vilmorin as the more accurate, seeing that they accord throughout 
better with their present state, as to which there can be no dispute. 
But 
