HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



93 



graph (alias Polyautograph, &c.) from aniline dye. 

 With mauve I have succeeded, but with red my 

 attempts have been an almost complete failure. I 

 merely added water to the dyes. The mauve would 

 take sixty copies, but the red and green dyes did not 

 seem sufficiently soluble in water. Can you tell me 

 what I ought to dissolve them in, and, moreover, 

 whether I ought to add sugar or gum to thicken the 

 ink ?— York. 



Yew Berries. — I trust that no reader of Science- 

 Gossip will venture to eat yew berries, although 

 Dipton Burn says they can be taken with im- 

 punity, for the poison is in the seeds, not in the pulp 

 of the fruit ; and if the seeds are swallowed, and the 

 shell of any get between, so that the gastric juice can 

 act on them, the consequences will most probably be 

 very serious. — Helen Watney. 



The largest Tree in the World. — In Nelson's 

 ' ' Scientific and Technical Reader, " there is an account, 

 abridged from Hutching's "Scenes and Wonders in 

 California," of a grove of trees, at least one of which 

 exceeds the tree quoted in your last number in height, 

 and several of which exceed it in diameter. I extract 

 the following from Nelson's "Mammoth Tree Grove :" 

 — This grove is situated on the watershed between 

 the San Antonia branch of the Calaveras River, and 

 the North fork of the Stanislaus River, in lat. 38 

 and long. 120° 10' west, at an elevation of 4370 feet 

 above the sea level, and at a distance of ninety- 

 seven miles from Sacramento city and eighty-seven 

 from Stockton. From specimens of the wood, cones 

 and foliage, Professor Lindley, England, considered 

 it as forming a new genus and named it ' ' Wellingtonia 

 gigantea," but Mr. Lobb, who had spent several 

 years in California, and had devoted himself to this 

 branch of study, decided it to belong to the " Taxo- 

 dium " family, and referred it to the old genus 

 " Sequoia semj>ervirens." It is now generally known 

 as Sequoia gigantea, popularly called " Wellingtonia," 

 and by the Americans " Washingtonia gigantea." 

 Within an area of fifty acres, there are 103 large trees, 

 twenty of which exceed 25 feet in diameter, and are 

 consequently over 75 ^ ee ^ m circumference. The 

 " Father of the Forest," the largest of the group, lies 

 prostrate and half buried in the soil ; it measures at the 

 root no feet in circumference, is 200 feet to the first 

 branch, and from the trees which were broken by its fall 

 is estimated to have been 435 feet in length ; 300 feet 

 from the roots it is 18 feet in diameter. The "Big 

 Tree " was bored off some years since with pump 

 augers and then wedged down ; the stump, which 

 stands 55 feet above the soil, is sound to the core, and 

 has been used as a ball room. This tree was 96 feet 

 in circumference at the ground, and 302 feet high. 

 The " Mother of the Forest " was stripped of its bark 

 in 1854, for exhibition in the New England States, 

 and now measures, without the bark, 84 feet in cir- 

 cumference, 70 feet up it is 39J feet (also without 

 the bark), its height is 321 feet. The " Burnt Tree," 

 prostrate, is estimated to have been 300 feet high 

 when standing, and is 97 feet in circumference, it 

 measures 39^ feet across the roots. "Hercules "is 

 95 feet in circumference, and 320 feet high. The 

 "Pioneer's Cabin," broken off 150 feet from the 

 ground, measures 39 feet in diameter, but owing to 

 its being hollow, and its surface uneven, its average is 

 not quite equal to that. Fourteen other trees average 

 291 feet high, and 78J feet in circumference. It is 

 estimated, from the number of concentric layers of 

 wood in these trees, each layer of which is supposed 

 to be the growth of a single year, that their age is 

 almost 3000 years, considerably younger than the one 



on exhibition. This grove is also described in an 

 amusing manner by T. W. Hinchliff, M.A., F.R.G.S., 

 in his " Over the Sea and Far Away," 1876. From 

 his account, the trees occupy a belt 3200 feet long, 

 and 700 wide, which contains from 90 to 100 sequoias 

 of large size, the highest is 325 feet, and the diameter 

 of one (which I think must be the " Big Tree ") is 27 

 feet. At 6 feet from the ground, he says, the survey 

 party counted the rings of this section, and found the 

 number to be 1255 : this tree, he thinks, is one of 

 the finest in the grove. It is probable that " Old 

 Moses " is one of this group, or at any rate a " Wel- 

 lingtonia," and that the "New York Herald" has 

 got his age a little too "big." — Thomas Wi>ider, 

 Sheffield. 



The Geology of Hayes Common. — In reply 

 to the query of J. R. S. C, in Science-Gossip, 

 No. 181, with reference to the remains of British 

 pit-dwellings at Hayes, I beg to say that he is wrong 

 in his supposition that they bear any resemblance to 

 "Dane holes." The remains of pit-dwellings are 

 sometimes called hut circles, since they are probably 

 the sites of wooden huts which have been encircled 

 by a low mound of earth excavated from the floor of 

 the hut. These circles at Hayes Common are nu- 

 merous and well-defined circular depressions varying 

 in diameter from 7 feet to 24 feet, and in greatest 

 depth from 4 inches to 2 feet. The number has been 

 roughly estimated at about 150. Scattered around 

 these hut circles I have found several worked flint 

 implements, which clearly indicate that this neigh- 

 bourhood at some time was the residence of our 

 primitive ancestors. The presence of these flints is 

 all the more remarkable from the fact of no chalk 

 flints, such as those of which the implements are 

 formed, occurring naturally on Hayes Common (see 

 Science-Gossip, No. '178, p. 217). At the same 

 time we have no evidence that this was the site of 

 a very extensive settlement. We are told by Strabo 

 that temporary buildings were erected by the Britons 

 for themselves and their cattle, and such a settlement 

 this may have been at Hayes, yet from its vicinity 

 to the British Camp at Holvvood Park, Keston, and 

 also from the discovery of many wrought flints of 

 beautiful workmanship in the adjoining parish of West 

 Wickham, it may be that the British settlement on 

 Hayes Common was more important than we might 

 at first suppose. In reference to J. R. S. C.'s 

 remarks respecting the use of the so-called "Dane 

 holes," I certainly fail to see the probability of his 

 supposition that they served either as habitations or 

 as hiding-places. If they had been intended as habi- 

 tations they would not require to be so deep as they 

 are often found to be ; while if they were made by 

 the Britons merely for hiding-places from their enemies 

 I question if so much care would have been taken as 

 to line the shaft with squared stone blocks, even if 

 time had allowed. To my mind the use of these 

 deep pits has yet to be explained : at the same time 

 I can easily imagine some of them to have been dug 

 by some of our earliest ancestors, for the purpose of 

 obtaining fresh flints from the chalk — an indispensable 

 material for the manufacture of the better class of 

 flint implements. It has also been thought — and 

 with some probability — that these "Dane holes" 

 may have been used as underground granaries in 

 which corn and other valuable commodities were 

 kept during the winter. There can be little doubt 

 that in many cases the shaft was the only entrance to 

 the subterranean chamber, and descent must have 

 been made by means of a rope or ladder of some sort. 

 The idea of descending a smooth shaft 50 or 60 feet 

 deep without some such apparatus could not for a 



