436 Inquiries relative to the Structure of Wood. 



It is, indeed, known, that the wood of a tree remains 

 and preserves its primitive form after it has been con- 

 verted into charcoal ; but no one has explained this 

 extraordinary phenomenon, very little attention having 

 been paid to it. 



An earthen vessel becomes hard and brittle in the 

 potter's furnace ; the vessel shrinks during the operation 

 of baking, but it undergoes no alteration of shape. 

 This phenomenon is easily accounted for; the water, 

 which distended the particles of the clay, kept them at 

 a distance from each other, and rendered the mass soft 

 and flexible, having been expelled by the power of the 

 heat, the several particles contract themselves together, 

 and form a hard brittle body, though the clay remains 

 the same before and after the operation. 



Is it not possible that wood is converted into char- 

 coal by a similar process ? For either the charcoal is 

 already formed in the wood, or, the wood being decom- 

 posed, the charcoal is formed of its elements or a part 

 of them. But is it not evidently impossible that the 

 elements of a solid body should be so totally deranged 

 as to separate them entirely from each other without 

 destroying the form or figure of the body ? 



In the sequel of this paper it will be shown that the 

 specific gravity of the solid parts of any kind of wood 

 is very nearly the same as that of the charcoal obtained 

 from it, a circumstance that gives a great degree of 

 probability to the hypothesis that the two substances 

 are identically the same. 



But I do not mean to amuse the Class with a detail of 

 my own conjectures ; it is to my experiments and their re- 

 sults that I now claim the honour of calling its attention. 



I was by accident first induced to enter upon this 



