BOARD AND PLANK. 521 



London in 1671. Such timber is called compass and knee 

 timber. It would appear that the former is naturally bent 

 logs, and that the latter is angular logs, including part of the 

 trunk and a principal branch, the irregularities of the shape 

 serving the purpose of shipbuilding. It is said that when 

 wooden ships were alone in use, trees were made to grow 

 artificially in the desired forms. In the averages which have 

 been derived from these entries low prices correct high prices, 

 and the reverse. Nor have I any doubt that, in the latter 

 quarter of the seventeenth century, timber by the load was 

 twice as dear as it was in the last quarter of the sixteenth, 

 and that the rise is generally to be ascribed to the great 

 impetus which the growing foreign trade of the country was 

 giving to shipbuilding. It should be observed also that the 

 rise is visible at Eton and Oxford, as notably as elsewhere. 

 Thus a load is bought at Eton in 1652 at 45^., at Sayes 

 Court near Deptford in 1663 at 405-., at Sheerness in 1670 

 at 46^., and at Cambridge in 1677 at 66^. %d. Evelyn, then 

 residing at Sayes Court, had good grounds for advocating in 

 his Sylva the extension of timber plantations, a counsel 

 which Hartlib had given a generation before. The contrast 

 of prices is more marked, if these later dockyard purchases 

 or purchases at places within the influence of dockyard prices 

 are compared with earlier purchases. Thus at Deptford in 

 1599 loads of oak timber range from 2os. to 14^. the load, 

 at Maidstone from 24^. to i8j., and in 1600 the dockyard buys 

 at iys. Some more entries of navy timber are among the 

 addenda. 



BOARD AND PLANK. If I can rely on More's Carpenter's 

 Rule, board was timber sawn in twelve-feet lengths, of a foot 

 broad, and an inch thick. It is extensively employed in 

 building, I suppose for floors, and when laid on joists or 

 rafters, and securely fixed, was of sufficient strength for 

 ordinary domestic purposes. It is generally oak, more rarely 

 dm, and still more rarely, and as a rule only at the latter 

 part of the period., deal. In the Averages which will be found 



