Py 
re 
” 
200 Miscellanies. 
for this purpose ; that season is chosen, as far as I have learned, simply 
because it is the most leisure period in the year. For the same reason, 
fire-wood is generally cut at that time. 
The hop-hornbeam ( Ostrya Virginica) is considered a very unfit 
species of wood for durability ; and is scarcely ever used on that ac- 
count. On the 26th of June, 1830, I had a tree of this kind cut 
down, the bark taken off, and the trunk, whose widest diameter was 
seven inches, converted into two posts and a rail. The posts, support- 
ing the rail, were set in the ground the next day. Here they remained, 
exposed to all the vicissitudes of Se till last fall, when they were 
removed to make way for a neater fa e parts inserted in the 
earth, were very much decayed and ‘opieauidiis ; but the exposed por- 
tions of the posts and the a, although deeply cracked while seasoning 
in the air, real the centre to the ver 'y exter ior 
ers. Thus, coritrary to the desory tions us, the alburnum proved 
to be as durable as the heart-wood. A transverse section of one of the 
posts, shows an area of heart-wood, one third less than the alburnal area. 
_ This is an interesting: question ; and I hope it will receive a more 
accurate investigation Joun T. PLuMMER. 
Richmond, Ind., Febery; 1841, 
5. Sunset at the West.*—In a former number of this Journal, the fact 
of the splendid radiations of light at sunset, as it occurs in the state of 
Illinois and west of several of the great lakes, was mentioned to show 
that the cause exists in the atmosphere or above the earth. One of 
these splendid sunsets was seen in this city on the 21st of August, 1840, 
The western horizon for 40° perhaps on the east side of the sun, and 
as many aboye it, was of a bright blood-red color immediately after 
sunset, except where the blue light in three distinct radiations passed, 
as from the sun, in a perfectly straight line through it, and widening of 
course as it passed upwards. No line could appear more straight than 
that which bounded the blue light. The whole was brilliant. 
In is, a similar appearance is often seen on the east side of the 
horizon, directly opposite the sun, and as it has just disappeared below 
the horizon. My attention had been called to this fact by a friend from 
t state, a few days before I visited Niagara Falls. On the evening 
of September 9th, at the Falls, I had the pleasure of seeing this same 
phenomenon in the east. The sun set with no uncommon appearances 
except the stream of white light which rose high towards the zenith 
from a thunder cloud behind which the sun disappeared a little before 
it came to the horizon. As crossed from Goat Island just afier sun- 
ar, ammo oar ae ha yur bt wan 
