An Aged and Enormous Oak.

—Among oak-trees of those which have been accurately measured, the largest in Europe is no doubt that near the town of Saintes, in the Department de la Charente Inferieure, on the road to Cozes.

This tree, which is sixty (sixty four English) feet high, has a diameter of twenty seven feet eight and a half inches (twenty-nine and a half English feet) near the ground; twenty-one and a half (almost twenty-three English) feet five higher up; and where the great boughs commence six Parisian feet (six feet five inches English).

In the dead part of the trunk a little chamber has been arranged, from ten feet eight inches to twelve feet nine inches wide, and nine feet eight inches high, (all English measure) with a semi circular bench cut out of the fresh wood.

A window gives light to the interior, so that the sides of the chamber (which is closed with a door) are clothed with ferns and lichens, giving it a pleasing appearance.

Judging by the size of a small piece of wood which has been cut out above the door, and in which the marks of 200 annular rings have been counted, the oak of Saintes would be between 1,800 and 2,000 years old.—Humboldt’s Aspects of Nature.