INQUIRIES 



RELATIVE TO THE STRUCTURE OF WOOD, 



The specific Gravity of its solid Parts, and the Quantity 

 of Liquids and elastic Fluids contained in it under 

 various Circumstances ; t/ie Quantity of Charcoal to 

 be obtained from it; and the Quantity of Heat pro- 

 duced by its Combustion* 



SINCE the days of Grew and Malpighi, there have 

 been but few regular inquiries into the structure 

 of wood. The science of botany has, indeed, taken 

 an excursive range ; and the indefatigable zeal of mod- 

 ern naturalists, who have travelled over all the known 

 world, has made us acquainted with an astonishing 

 number of plants, unknown before in Europe, and 

 therefore called new, by which our gardens and apart- 

 ments are embellished with a profusion of gay flowers ; 

 but still the knowledge of the vegetable economy is 

 scarcely at all advanced. The circulation of the sap in 

 plants is still a subject of dispute, and the causes of its 

 ascension are very imperfectly known. The specific grav- 

 ity of the solid parts which form the wood of plants is 

 unascertained, and, by consequence, the proportions of 

 solids, of liquids, and of elastic fluids ; the component 

 parts of a plant, with the variations to which they are 

 subject in different seasons, are matters of which we are 

 still ignorant. 



