Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1886 — India’s Iconoclast. [ARTICLE]

India’s Iconoclast.

A curious destroyer of human works in India, according to Dr. R. F. Hutchinson, is the peepal tree, This is a kind of fig, which multiplies beyond seeds being sown, .broadcast over the land in the droppings of the birds and bats which feast on itß fruit. The peepal rises everywhere, and its effect is the disintegration of rocks and buildings, the danger being so great that the keepers of large structures are constantly on watch during fig time for bird-droppings. *As an illustration of what the tree may do and its wonderful vitality, it is stated that on the summit tof the northern minaret of the great mosque of Bareilly, one hundred and fifty feet high, a peepal flourishes grandly beyond reach, and its everactive roots are gradually breaking np the cupola of the minaret. Col. D. J. Williams, Quartermaster U. S. A., and ex-U. S, Consul at Callao, Peru, spent $20,000 in eight years in trying to cure himself of rheumatism, but got no relief until he used St. Jacobs Oil, which cured him.