Age, a term of various meanings, including, among others, the length of time elapsing since one's birth. In the United States a person is said to be of age when 21 years old, though in many states a girl becomes of age at 18. A man may be a United States representative at 25, a senator at 30, and president at 35. At 21 a man may vote and is liable for poll tax. He may be drafted into the militia at 18, but is exempt from poll tax and military service after 45. A child is not responsible for crime committed under the age of 7, and only partially so up to the age of 14; but may be sent to a house of correction or reform school at any age. A youth may be executed for murder at 14. An oath of allegiance may be taken at 17. Children are competent to give testimony at any age, but the court and jury are free to decide the degree of credibility to be given such testimony. In England a member of Parliament must have attained the age of 21; a priest, 24; a bishop, 30, and a minor may assume the throne at 18. The age to which man, the lower animals, and plants live is not a matter of definite record. It is certain, however, that some animals live longer than man, and that some plants live longer than man, and that some plants live longer than any animal. Among the older trees are the cocoanut palms of Brazil, 700 years old; Arabian date palms, 300; Wallace's Oak at Paisley, Scotland, 700; eight celebrated olive trees on the Mount of Olives at Jerusalem, 1,000; yews at Fountains Abbey, England, 900. Other celebrated chestnut, cypress, and oak trees are known to be in the neighborhood of 1,000 years old. By counting the rings of annual growth, Adamson, the botanist, estimated the age of certain baobab trees in Africa at 3,000 to 5,000 years. The giant sequoias of California contend with the baobabs for the honor of being the oldest living things on the face of the earth. Among animals the swan is known to have lived over 100 years. The stork and the parrot have been known to live more than a century. The elephant and the rhinoceros are reputed to live 200 to 300 years. An elephant is known to have lived 130 years after his capture. Estimated on the basis of the layers of whalebone, whales are thought to attain an age of 400 years. Carp are credited with 150 years, and in 1497 a pike was caught in Austria wearing a brass ring dated 1230, or 267 years back. A tortoise from the island of Seychelles was shown at the St. Louis Exposition, with a well-attested claim to an age of 250 years. The scriptural term of human life is three score and ten years. Some of the ages ascribed in the Scriptures, as that of Methuselah at 969 years, are evidently due to some misapprehension of the chronicler, but the ages given for Abraham, 175, Isaac, 180, Jacob, 147, and Joseph, 110, are not at all incredible. Charles I invited Thomas Parr, a native of Shropshire, to visit him at the age of 169. The excitement and feasting of court proved too much for the venerable peasant and he died, though the eminent Dr. Harvey stated that but for this accident he might have lived many years longer. The record of his birth, 1539, and death, 1724, shows that a certain Hungarian peasant named Peter lived to the extreme age of 185 years. The average duration of human life is about 33 years. In PHYSIOLOGY, six ages are recognized: infancy, childhood, boyhood or girlhood, youth or adolescence, manhood or womanhood, and old age. Shakespeare in As You Like It adds a seventh; in all, the infant, the schoolboy, the lover, the soldier, the justice, the age of the lean and slippered pantaloon, and, lastly, second childhood. IN ARCHAEOLOGY, three well defined ages are spoken of as the Age of Stone, the Age of Bronze, and the Age of Iron. The remains of prehistoric man show that the use of these materials for weapons and utensils followed in the order named, though it is to be understood that each age shaded off into the one that followed, and that some localities laid aside stone or bronze weapons much earlier than others. In this sense of the word age means a stage of development. Professor Ward, a prominent geologist, estimates the age of the earth to be 72,000,000 years. IN MYTHOLOGY, Hesiod divided the history of mankind into the golden, the silver, the bronze, the heroic, and the iron age, terms used by writers and poets. The Golden Age, in particular, denotes the height of prosperity. In history, likewise, the term age is used to denote a period often noted for some characteristic, as the Age of Pericles, the Age of Solon, the Elizabethan Age, the Dark Ages, the Medieval Ages, etc. IN GEOLOGY, age is used to designate a long period of time. A classification proposed by J. D. Dana and adopted very generally is the following: 1. Archaean: the oldest geologic age. The rocks are without fossils. This age is known also as azoic, meaning without life. 2. Silurian: the rocks are characterized by the presence of invertebrate fossils only. Animals with backbones had not yet made their appearance. 3. Devonian: an age of rocks containing the fossil remains of fishes. 4. Mesozoic: the age of reptiles. 5. Tertiary: the age of mammals. 6. Quaternary: the age of man.