OLD TREES.
On the slope of the Sierra Nevada, five thousand feet above the sea-level, there are a number of trees varying from 250 to 320 feet in height and from 10 to 20 feet in diameter. The bark of these trees is from 12 to 15 inches in thickness. In 1853 one of them was cut down and 21 feet of the bark from the lower part of the trunk was used to make a room, and when completed it was large enough to contain a piano and seat forty persons.
On one occasion it held 150 children. The tree from which this bark was taken was reputed to have been three thousand years old. There are many old trees in the world standing to-day, of which we name the following:
The camphor-tree of Sorrogi, in Japan, is hollow, and will hold fifteen persons. Superstition relates that it grew from the staff of the philosopher Kobodarsi, and Siebold thinks the tree may have existed since the time of that sage at the close of the eighth century. The cypress of Soma, in Lombardy, is perhaps the oldest tree of which there is any record in the world. It is generally supposed to have been planted in the year of the birth of Christ, but the Abbé of Beliz states that there is extant at Milan a chronicle which proves that it was in existence in the time of Julius Cæsar, b.c. 42. It is 121 feet high. The olive-tree at Pessio is probably the most ancient in Italy, and is stated to be 700 years old. The dragon tree of Orotava, in the island of Teneriffe, is considered to be one thousand years old. It is stated to have been as large and as hollow in the fourteenth century as it was when found by Humboldt, late in the last century. There is an extraordinary tree in the neighborhood of Finale which bears something like 8000 oranges in one year.