With reference to the forest which once covered this country, an erroneous impression prevails as to its age. Poets and romancers have been in the habit of speaking of these "primeval forests" as though they might have been bushes when Nahor and Abraham were infants. But this is a great error. Since the discovery of the country only one tree has been found that was eight hundred years old. This is mentioned by Sir Charles Lyell as having grown out of one of the ancient mounds near Marietta, Ohio. But the great majority of them were not over three hundred years old. The testimony of the trees concerning the past is not quite so abundant as that of the rocks, but that of one tree grown in central New York is of a remarkable character. It was a white oak, which grew in the rich valley of the Clyde River, about one mile west of Lyons' Court House, and was cut down in the year 1837. The body made a stick of timber eighty feet long, which before sawing was about five feet in diameter. It was cut into short logs and sawed up. From the center of the butt-log was sawed a piece about eight by twelve inches. At the butt end of this piece the saw laid bare, without marring them, some old scars made by an ax or some other sharp instrument. These scars were perfectly distinct and their character equally unmistakable. They were made, apparently, when the young tree was about six inches in diameter. Outside of these scars there were counted four hundred and sixty distinct rings, each ring marking with unerring certainty one year's growth of the tree. It follows that this chopping was done in 1374, or one hundred and eighteen years before the first voyage of Columbus across the Atlantic. It has been questioned whether the rings shown in a cross-section of a tree can be relied upon to determine truly the number of years it has been growing. A singular confirmation of the correctness of this method of counting was furnished some years since. In the latter part of the last century the late Judge Porter surveyed a large tract of land lying east of the Genesee River, known as "The Gore." Some thirty-five years afterward it became necessary to resurvey one of its lines, and recourse was had to the original surveys. Most of the forest through which the first line had been run was cleared off, and such trees as had been "blazed" as line-trees had overgrown the scars. One tree was found which was declared to be an original line-tree. On cutting into it carefully the old "blaze" was brought to light, and on counting the rings outside of it, they were found to correspond with the number of years which had elapsed since the first survey.