1132 Marvels of the Universe 
the topmost course of bricks, which on germination had sent down its roots to earth. Our British 
trees have been known to take possession of disused chimneys in the same way ; but in their case 
they grew simply as trees on the summit. The Peepul, by virtue of its roots in the ground 
far below, grew apace and spread on all sides, so that after the lapse of only fifteen years 
from the time the chimney 
had been in use it presented 
the appearance shown in the 
photograph. 
These roots do not always 
go straight down the outside 
of the structure upon which 
they have begun life. Some- 
times they penetrate the joints 
of the masonry, and then by 
their expansion they lift stone 
from stone. On page I13I is 
a photograph of a figure of 
Buddha which had been built 
up of masonry ; but a seedling 
Peepul got possession, and by 
the expansion of its roots was 
in a fair way to wreck it. 
Then the horrid character of 
its action seems to have struck 
ihe Should the image of 
Buddha be destroyed by 
Buddha’s own tree? So it 
set to work to repair the evil 
it had done, and now the 
once toppling Buddha is held 
firmly together by interlacing 
roots of the Peepul that bind 
its stones securely together. 
There is also a big Fig in 
Australia—the Large-leaved 
Fig—which has somewhat 
similar habits. Mr. Back- 
house tells us of one whose 
trunk was forty feet round at 
the highest point he could 
AMY ST ROE Is Se SU Gece M reach. He says it often springs 
TPL eee ae Rar ) "uu ulaxrerasm® from a seed deposited by a 
bird in the cavity of another 
Phot 5 by] 
A FACTORY CHIMNEY. 
The photo shows a factory chimney after fifteen years of disuse. In the meantime 
a Peepul seed has germinated at the top and sent down roots which hold the tree at an elevation of fifty 
nao Goseines feet or more. Its roots also 
spread out like walls along the ground, so that the area occupied by these buttresses is about 
thirty feet across. 
Mr. Rodway, too, has told us of the deadly work of certain Figs in Guiana, and Professor Moseley 
relates with satisfaction that in the Aru Islands he saw a species of Fig that had been too clever 
