NOTES AND QUERIES: 



A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION 



FOR 



LITERAFvY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. 



" TJinien found, make a note of." — Captain Cuttle. 



Vol. IV. —No. 108.] Saturday, November 22. 1851. 



r Price Threepence. 

 I Stamped Edition 4^4. 



CONTENTS. 



Notes : — Page 



Age of Trees - - - - - - 481 



Lines attributed to Admiral Bjng ... 403 



A Chapter on Emblems ... - - 403 



Folk Lore : — Music at Funerals — Cheshire Folk Lore 



and Siiperstition ------ 404 



Minor Notes : — Talented — Anagram — Dictionary of 



Hackneyed Quotations - , - - - 405 



Qderies : — 



Masters and Marshals of the Ceremonies - - 405 



Minor Queries : — Cause of Transparency — Gold Medal 

 of the Ute Ouke of York — Compositions during the 

 Protectorate— Bristol Tables — Macfarlaue's Geogra- 

 phical Collection — " Acu tinali niendi" — Sir Joshui 

 Keynohls — Great Plough at Castor Chiir<h ^Church 

 of St. Bene't Finn — Inscription on a Pair of Spec- 

 tacles — Campbell — Family of Cordeux — Panelling 

 Inscription — Infantry Firuig . , . - 406 



Replies : — 



The Reverend Richard Farmer, by Bolton Cornoy - 407 

 Anglo-Catholic Library - - - - .408 



General James Wolfe . . . . ■ 409 



Punishment of Edward of Caernarvon by his Father — 



Character of Edward 1. - - - - - 409 



Elizabeth Joceline's Legacy to an Unborne Child • 410 



Replies to Mitior Queries; — Coleridge's ** Cliristabel*' 

 — l)ryden ; Illustrations by T. Molt White — Lofcop, 

 Meariin? of — Middleton's Epigrams and Satyres — 

 Lord Edward Fitzgerald — Earwig — Sanderson and 

 Taylor — Island of iEgiiia and the Temple of Jupiter 

 Panhellinius — The Broad Arrow— > Consecration of 

 Bishops in Sweden — Meaning of Spon — Quaker 

 Expurgated Biule — Cozens the Painter — Authors of 

 the Homilies . - . . . 



Miscellaneous : — 



Notes on B')ok«, Sales, Catalogues, &c. - 

 Books and Odd Volumes wanted - 

 Notices to Correspondents 

 Auvertisements - . - . 



- 410 



- 413 



- 413 



- 414 

 . 414 



daatciS. 



AGE OF TEEE3. 



Alexaniler von Humboldt, in liis work entitled 

 Views of Nature ([.p. 220. 2G8 — 276. ed. Bohn), 

 has some interesting remarks on the age of trees. 



" In vegc'tal)U' forms (lie says) mansiv/; size is indica- 

 tive of age; aiul in the vegetable kingdom aU)ne are 

 age and the manifestation of an ever-renewed vigour 

 linked together." 



Following up this remark, ho refers to specimens 

 of the IJaohul) (Adansonia diffi(ata), with trunks 

 niea.suiiiig more than tiiirty feet in diameter, the 

 age of which is estimated Ijy Adanson at 51.00 

 years. All calculations of the age of a tree, 



founded merely on the size of its trunk, are, how- 

 ever, uncertain, unless the law of its growth, and 

 the limits of the variation producible by peculiar 

 circumstances, are ascertained, which, in the case 

 of the Adansonia, have not been determined. For 

 the same reason, the calculation of 2,500 years for 

 a gigantic cypress in Persia, mentioned by Evelyn 

 in his Silva, is of no value. 



Humboldt afterwards refers to " the more cer- 

 tain estimations yielded by annular rings, and by 

 the relation found to exist between the tliickness 

 of the layer of wood and the duration of growth;" 

 which, he adds, give us shorter pei-iods for our 

 temperate northern zone. The calculation of the 

 age of a tree, founded on its successive rings, ap- 

 pears to be quite certain ; and whenever these 

 can be counted, the age of a tree can be deter- 

 mined without risk of error. Humboldt quotes a 

 statement from Endlicher, that " in Lithuania 

 linden (or lime) trees have been felled which 

 measured 87 feet round, and in which 815 annular 

 rings have been counted." The section of a trunk 

 of a silver fir, which grew near Barr, is preserved 

 in the Museum at Strasburg : its diameter was 

 eight feet close to the ground, and the number of 

 rings is said to amount to several hundreds. 



Unfortunately, this mode of determining a tree's 

 age cannot be applied to a living tree ; and it is 

 only certain where the tree is sound at the heart. 

 Where a tree has become hollow from old age, 

 the rings near the centre, which constitute a part 

 of the evidence of its duration, no longer exist. 

 Hence the age of the great oak of Saintes, in the 

 department of the Charente Inferieure, which 

 measures twenty-three feet in diameter five feet 

 from the ground, and is large enough to contain 

 a small chamber, can only be estimated ; and the 

 antiquity of ISOO or 2000 years, which is assigned 

 to it, must rest on an uncertain conjecture. 



Decandolle lays it down that, of all European 

 trees, the yeiv attains the greatest age ; and he 

 assigns an antiquity of thirty centuries to tha'Taxus 

 huccata of Braburn in Kent; from twenty-five to 

 thirty centuries to the Scotch yew of Fortingal ; 

 and fourteen and a half and twelve centuries re- 

 spectively to those of Crowinirst in Surrey and 

 ilipon (Fountains Abbey) in Yorkshire. These 



Vol.. IV.— No. ICS. 



