Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/51

 1868.] The Penn Treaty-Ground and a Monument to William Penn. 31 Washington Yandusen says, that suck- ers from the roots of the elm frequently spring up all over the old ground, several hundred feet from where it grew. With regard to the scion now standing directly between the monument and Gorgas's counting-room, whose authenticity is undeniable — although Mr. Yandusen says it has been transplanted from the spot where it first made its appearance as a sucker — and which is now a flourish- ing tree of between fifty and sixty years old, my own measurement, by the tape- line, on the 16th of July, 1868, shows it to be eight feet seven and a half inches circumference, four feet above the ground. This averages it as thirty-four and a half inches, or nearly three feet diameter, which, but for the measurement, and my knowledge of its correctness, I would not, from a casual or even a careful look at the tree, believe myself. The measure- ment was taken at the smallest point. This tree forks very low, within five feet of the ground, and is_ deeply striated on both sides, so that carelessly, at a little distance, it might be taken for two. The tape-line was carefully passed around and tested just whei*e the trunk loses the swell of the roots, and the boughs begin to fork. Before it blew down the great elm was, in round num- bers, five times as old as this, its descend- ent. The annual rings become narrower and narrower with each succeeding year, so that it would not be correct to say that a tree of the same species, five times the age, must be five times the diameter ; but it would be a sound analogical deduction, that, all other conditions the same, a tree of about five times the age must be of about three times the diameter — by this example, nearly nine feet ; therefore, I rely implicitly on Watson's dimensions, namely, twenty-four feet circumference, or eight feet diameter for the great elm. Taking the varying positions of these two gentlemen, dwellers and habitues of the very spot for many years, and ob- taining their average, we reach this very curious solution. If we confirm Mr. Tees' position, the bark and part of the wood of the tree would run inside the equated space on the south ; if we con- firm Mr. Yandusen's position, the bark and part of the wood, as before, would encroach upon the equated tree on the north ; if we take the equated elm, its northern substance would invade Mr. Tees' elm, and its southern Mr. Yan- dusen's elm, because all are parallel with Eyre's line, at sixty feet distance, and they do not vary the confirmed thickness of three great elms.* In the centre of the average spot, then, is the place to plant the centre of the monument. A glance at the double dotted line, representing the proposed square of not exceeding one hundred feet, as estab- lished, though not carried out, by the Pennsylvania Legislature, will show that all these points are thrown nearly into the middle ' of the proposed new street in the east. This is maladroit- ness, with a witness ! We may rather congratulate ourselves, that the matter is yet inchoate. I might indulge my imagination with the artificial and the art-natural beauties which could be here displayed, but I refrain. " First catch your hare." Although I firmly believe that the de- sire to consecrate this spot to public use is rooted in the very hearts of our citizens, and that the first real step to- wards organization will effect it. With the highest hope of such a consummation I rest Yery truly yours, CHARLES J. LTJKENS. Samuel Sloan, Esq., Philadelphia. THE INDEX. The little monumental Obelisk erected by the Penn Society does not mark the exact spot whence upsprang the trunk of the great Elm. The tree stood some built over the site of the great elm, but a little below it.
 * Mr. Vandusen says that the two men-of-war were not