W776 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. - PART IIL. 
1624 
ms man eee Oe ae 
‘ (ey ey een. ‘ : Z, NW, Te: kage 
oy yp OY REE be ob Ss. Fe TT LESTE 
Nottingham, and Derby, and dripped over 777 square yards. An oak 
between Newnham Courtney and Clifton shaded a circumference of 560 
yards of ground, under which 2420 men. might have commodiously taken 
shelter. The immense Spread Oak in Worksop Park, near the white gate, 
gave an extent, between the ends of its opposite branches, of 180 ft. It drip- 
ped over an area of nearly 3000 square yards, which is above half an acre ; and 
would have afforded shelter to a regiment of nearly 1000 horse. The Oakley 
Oak, now growing on an estate of the Duke of Bedford, has a head 110 ft. in 
diameter. The oak called Robur Britannicum, in the park at Rycote, is said 
to have been extensive enough to cover 5000 men; and at Ellerslie, in Ren- 
frewshire, the native village of the hero Wallace, there is still standing “ the 
large oak tree” (see p. 1772.), among the branches of which it is said that he 
and 300 of his men hid themselves from the English. 
Size of Oaks, as compared with that of other Objects. “The circle occupied 
by the Cowthorpe Oak,” says Professor Burnet, “where the bottom of its truak 
meets the earth, exceeds the ground plot of that majestic column of which 
an oak is confessed to have been the prototype, viz. Smeaton’s Eddystone 
Lighthouse. Sections of the trunk of the one would, at several heights, nearly 
agree with sections of the curved and cylindrical portions of the shaft of 
the other. The natural caverns in Damory’s and other oaks were larger 
than the chambers alluded to, as horizontal slices of the trunk would be con- 
siderably too large to floor any of them. The hollow space in Damory’s Oak 
was, indeed, 3 ft. wider than the parish church of St. Lawrence, in the Isle of 
Wight. Arthur’s round table would form an entire roof, or projecting capital, 
for the lighthouse: indeed, upon this table might be built a round church, as 
large as that of St. Lawrence, in the Isle of Wight, before alluded to, and 
space to spare; so that, if the extent of the sap wood be added, or the ground 
plot of the Cowthorpe Oak be substituted for Arthur’s table, there would be 
plenty of room, not only to build such a parish church, but to allow space for 
a small cemetery beside it. Indeed,” continues Burnet, “with reference to 
