CHAP, in S Y L V A 55 



my part do I much question the authorities : But let 

 this suffice ; what has been produced being not only 

 an historical speculation of encouragement and use, 

 but such as was pertinent to the subject under consi- 

 deration, as well as what I am about to add concern- 

 ing the texture, and similar parts of the body of trees, 

 which may also hold in shrubs, and other lignous 

 plants ; because it is both a curious, and rational 

 account of their anatomization, and worthy of the 

 sagacious enquiry of that learned person, the late Dr. 

 Goddard, as I find it entered amongst other of those 

 precious collections of this illustrious Society. 



19. The trunk or bough of a tree being cut trans- 

 versely plain and smooth, sheweth several circles or 

 rings more or less orbicular, according to the external 

 figure, in some parallel proportion, one without the 

 other, from the centre of the wood to the inside of 

 the bark, dividing the whole into so many circular 

 spaces. These rings are more large, gross, and dis- 

 tinct in colour and substance in some kind of trees, 

 generally in such as grow to a great bulk in a short 

 time, as fir, ash, GPc. smaller or less distinct in those 

 that either not at all, or in a longer time grow great; 

 as quince, holly, box, lignum-vitae, ebony, and the 

 like sad coloured and hard woods ; so that by the 

 largeness or smallness of the rings, the quickness or 

 slowness of the growth of any tree may perhaps at 

 certainty be estimated. 



These spaces are manifestly broader on the one 

 side, than on the other, especially the more outer, to 

 a double proportion, or more ; the inner being near 

 an equality. 



It is asserted, that the larger parts of these rings are 

 on the south and sunny side of the tree (which is very 



