1778 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART IIl. 
each; making a total of 2426 cubic feet of convertible timber. The bark was 
estimated at 6 tons; but, as some of the very heavy body bark was stolen out 
of the barge at Newport, the exact weight is not known. Five men were 
20 days stripping and cutting down this tree; and two sawyers were 5 months 
converting it, without losing a day, Sundays excepted. The main trunk was 
‘91 ft. in diameter ; and, in sawing it through, astone was discovered 6 ft. from 
the ground, above a yard in the body of the tree, through which the saw cut. 
The stone was about 6in. in diameter, and was.completely shut in; but around 
it there was not the least symptom of decay. The rings in the but were care- 
fully counted, and amounted to upwards of four hundred in number ; a con- 
vincing proof that this tree was in an improving state for upwards of four 
hundred years; and, as the ends of some of its branches were decayed, and 
had dropped off, it is presumed that it had stood a great number of years after 
it had attained maturity. (Literary Panorama for August, 1815; and Gent. 
Mag. for October, 1817, p. 305.) The Northwick Oak, Blockley, Worces- 
tershire, which, when felled, was about 300 years old, had a girth, at 5 ft. 
from the ground, of 21 ft.; its smallest girth was 18 ft.; height to the 
branches, 30 ft.; solid contents of the body, 234 ft.; and of the arms, 200 ft. 
(Gent. Mag., 1791, p. 612.) The oak which was felled in Withy Park, near 
Wenlock in Shropshire, in 1697, spread 114 ft.: the trunk was 9 ft. in diameter, 
exclusive of the bark. “ It contained 24 cords of yard wood, 114 cords of 
4ft. wood; 252 park pales 6 ft. long; 1 load of cooper’s wood; 64 tons of 
timber in the boughs; 28 tons of timber in the body; and all this besides fag- 
‘gots, notwithstanding several boughs had dropped off in Mr. Wilde’s father’s 
and grandfather’s time. The stem was so wide, that two men could thrash on it 
without striking each other. Several trees which grew at Cunsborough were 
bought by a cooper at 10/. per yard, for 9 ft. or 10ft. high; and Ralph 
Archdall felled a tree in Sheffield Park of 13 ft. diameter at the kerf; and 
there was another, standing near the old ford, of 10 yards in compass.” (Hunt. 
Evel.,ii. p. 194.) In the hall in Goodrich Castle, Herefordshire, there is, says 
Grose, a beam of oak, without a knot, 66 ft. long, and near 2 ft. square the 
whole length. Evelyn mentions a large oaken plank, cut from a tree felled by 
his grandfather’s order, at Wootton, 5 ft. wide, 9 ft. 6 in. in length, and 6 in, 
thick, all entire and clear; and Dr. Plot notices a table in Dudley Castle hall, 
already mentionéd (p. 1777.), which was cut out of a tree which grew in the 
park, all of one plank, above 75 ft. long, and 3 ft. wide throughout its whole 
extent ; and which, being too long for the castle hall, 7 yards 9 in. were obliged 
‘to be cut off. The mainmast of the Royal Sovereign, built in Charles I.’s time, 
was 100 ft. long, save one, and within 1 in. of a yard in thickness, all of one 
piece of oak; several of the beams of the same ship were 44 ft. in length, 4 of 
which were cut from an oak which grew in Framlingham, in Suffolk. Marcen- 
nas states that the great ship called the Craven, which was built in France, had 
its keel timbers 120 ft. long, and the mainmast 85 ft. high, and 12 ft. in diameter 
at the base. An oak is mentioned as fallen in Sheffield Park, of so great a 
girth, that, when the trunk lay flat on ievel ground, two men on horseback, on 
opposite sides, could not see the crowns of each other’s hats. Dr. Plot records 
a similar circumstance as noticed of another immense oak at Newbury, which, 
he says, was 15 yards in girth. The Lord’s Oak, at Rivelin, was 12 yards 
about, and the top yielded 21 cords of wood; its diameter, 3 yards 28 in, 
The Lady Oak was 5 ft. square for 40ft., contained 42 tons of timber, and 
its boughs gave 25 cords of fuel ; and another, in the Hall Park, close by, gave 
18 yards, without bough or knot; being 3 ft. 6 in. square at top, and not much 
bigger near the root. Arthur’s round table must, as Gilpin observes, have 
been cut from a tree of immense girth, as it measures, according to Grose, 
18 ft. in diameter. Now, this is 18 ft. of solid heart wood ; and, if the depth of 
sap wood, in which it must have been environed, be taken into the account, 
we shall have the dimensions of a most enormous tree. Out of such oaks as 
these must those ancient canoes, described by Sir Joseph Bankes as.exhumed - 
