CHRONOLOGY OF TREES. 147 



would be a ring deposited for every terminal bud formed. 

 If a tree made two growths in a season, two rings would 

 be the result; but as most trees made one growth each 

 year only, a single or annual ring would be all that would 

 be formed in a single season. 



On motion. Mr. George R. Tuttle was elected Librarian 

 of the Academy. 



The meeting then adjourned for two weeks. 



John Kirkpatrick, Sec'y. 



CHRONOLOGY OF TREES— COMPARISON OF 

 LAYERS OF GROWTH. 



BY COL. CHARLES WHITTLESEY. 



Read before the Cleveland Academy of Natural Science, January 22, 1858. 



I have given a very critical examination to this subject. 

 Although the works on Botany lay it down as an axiom 

 that there is a layer or ring of growth produced each year, 

 in a healthy and thriving exogenous tree, and one only — 

 (see Ruschenberger's Outlines of Botany, page 590,) — this 

 being also the common or popular belief, arising, no doubt, 

 from general observation, yet I have never seen a state- 

 ment of specific examinations upon trees whose ages were 

 known. 



In 1838, an illiterate man, who could not read, brought 

 to the Register of the Land Office, at Chillicothe, a block 

 from a Witness Tree of the Public Surveys in that district, 

 in order to show the number of the section in which he 

 wished to purchase. The Register informed me that the 



