I 97 j 



XVI. Proposal for a new System of Building Hoiises, 

 Streets, ^<#c. By G, Field, Esq. 



To Mr. Tilloch. 



TSIR, 

 HE analogy between the following essay and an inge- 

 nious paper which I have lately seen " On the Fiojure in 

 which Trees should be disposed in Plantations," (quoted in 

 No. 7 of the Retrospect, from the Farmer's Magazine, 

 No. 28,) and their dependance on the same principles, have 

 induced me to resume my essay, which is connected with a 

 more extensive design, and has lain-by several years, and 

 to publish it through your Magazine, with which I consider 

 it more compatible than with either of the above. 



The author of tlve paper I have mentioned has demon- 

 strated that the most advantageous distribution of trees in a 

 plantation is hexangular, because he has observed in nature 

 *' thai mature strong trees, which have arisen from the seed 

 of any one tree, will be found nearly in the angles of an 

 equilateral and equians^ular hexagon, ivith the original tree- 

 in the centre;" and because " the closest order in tvhich it 

 is possible to place a nirmher of points upon a plane swface, 

 not nearer than a given distance from each other, is the an- 

 gles of hexagons, ivith a point in the centre of' each hexa- 

 gon." (See Euclid, book iv. prop. 15.) 



In nature it may be observed also that the general form 

 of trees is circular, their branches diverging in radii from 

 their trunks as centres, and that nature distributes their off- 

 spring in circles around the parent trees. It may be also 

 rationally or mathematically proved that the closest arrange- 

 ment of circles on a plane is in hexagons; and these are tiie 

 points of union and coincidence by which an ea^v transition 

 is made i'rom the subject of the above paper to that of the 

 present essay ; coincidences arrived at, probably, by verv 

 diffi-rent routes, and strongly presumptive of the same foun- 

 dation in nature and truth. 



Vol. 29. No. 114. iVw. 1807. G On 



