182 Proceedings of the 



mation is ensured : and, as a proof that acorns make far from 

 despicable bread, a loaf and three dozen small biscuits were placed 

 upon the table as samples thereof; and, as evidence of the practica- 

 bility of their use in time of scarcity, were eagerly sought after, and 

 speedily consumed by the persons present, many of whom declared 

 (and their opinion has been re-echoed in several of the public 

 prints) that they form not merely an esculent, but a very palatable 

 bread. 



Mr. Burnett's observation, that few persons, save those to whom 

 habit has rendered it familiar, form any thing Hke just estimates 

 of the true size of trees, is certainly correct ; and even figures 

 convey to many but an imperfect conception of length and breadth, 

 height and girth ; more familiar types should be joined thereto in 

 popular descriptions. When told of an oak, seven or ten feet 

 diameter, it scarcely arrests our attention ; but when we reflect that 

 the smaller of these has a width of trunk as great as the carriage- 

 way of Fetter-lane, near Temple Bar, or of Bedford-street, in the 

 Strand, we become convinced of the surprising magnitude of such 

 a living mass of timber. Many such illustrations were given, to 

 enumerate all of which would swell this report beyond its due 

 proportions ; let one or two suffice. The long oaken table in 

 Dudley Castle, a single plank cut out of the trunk of an oak grow- 

 ing in the neighbourhood, measured considerably longer than the 

 bridge that crosses the lake in the Regent's Park. The famous 

 roof of Westminster Hall, the span of which is among the greatest 

 ever built without pillars, is little more than one-third the width of 

 the Worksop spread oak ; its branches would reach over a West- 

 minster Hall, placed on either side of its trunk, and have near 

 thirty-two feet to spare ; the rafters of Westminster Hall roof, 

 though without pillars, have massive walls on each side to support 

 them, but in the tree boughs of sixteen feet more extent are sus- 

 tained at one end only. The Duke's walking-stick, in Welbeck 

 Park, was higher than the roof of Westminster Abbey. The arch 

 in the venerable Greendale oak, through which there is a road, and 

 through which a carriage can be, and often has been driven, is 

 higher than the entrance to Westminster Abbey (the Poets' 

 Postern). The ground plot of the Cowthorpe oak, now standing, 

 is greater than that of the Eddystone Lighthouse. Upon Arthur's 

 round table might be raised a church of equal capacity with the 

 parish church of St. Lawrence in the Isle of Wight ; and if the 

 basement of the Cowthorpe oak were substituted for the table, there 

 would be plenty of room, not only to build the parochial church. 



