140 Ottober 1748* 



the former has the flronger poifon. However, I 

 have feen people who have been as much fwelled 

 from the noxious exhalations of the latter, as 

 they could have been from thofe of the for- 

 mer. I like wife know, that of two fifters, the 

 one could manage the tree without being af- 

 fefted by its venom, though the other immedi- 

 ately felt it as foon as the exhalations of the tree 

 came near her, or whenever (lie came a yard too 

 near the tree, and even when (he ftood in the 

 way of the wind, which blew directly from this 

 fhrub. But upon me this fpecies of fumach has 

 never exerted its power; though I made above a 

 hundred experiments upon myfelf v/ith the great- 

 eft ftems, and the juice once fquirted into my eye, 

 without doing me any harm. On another per- 

 form' s hand, which I had covered very thick with 

 it, the fkin, a few hours after, became as hard as 

 a piece of tanned leather, and peeled off in the 

 following days, as if little fcales fell from it. 



O5t. loth, IN the morning I accompanied Mr. 

 Cock to his country feat. 



THOUGH the woods of Penfyfoania afford many 

 oaks, and more fpecies of them than are found 

 further north, yet they do not build fo many 

 jftiips in this province as they do in the northern 

 ones, and elpecially in New England. But expe- 

 rience has taught the people that the fame kind 

 of trees is more durable the further it grows to 

 the north, and that this advantage decreafes the 

 more it grows in warm climates. It is like- 

 wife plain that the trees in the fouth grow more 

 every year, and form thicker ringlets, than thofe 

 in the north, The former have like wife much 



greater 



