October 1, 1896.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



235 



and ascending to examine into and report upon what was 

 happening beneath." 



Although the following seems to us rather absurd, it is 

 not sucli a very long time ago since such things were 

 practised and believed in in many parts of the South 

 of England. " To cure sickly or diseased children a 

 split was made in the stem of a growing ash and held 

 open by wedges ; through this opening the child 

 was passed naked. The tree was then bound up, and 

 if it grew well together again that was considered a 

 sure sign that the charm had worked and the child 

 would recover." 



A "shrew-ash" was made by entombing a live 

 shrew-mouse in an auger hole made in the bole of 

 the tree — no doubt with many spells and incantations 

 long since forgotten. At any future time a few light 

 strokes with a branch taken from such a tree would 

 instantly cure cattle and horses that were believed to 

 have been bewitched or cramped by the pernicious 

 shrew touching them or running over their limbs 

 while asleep. 



The ash is a true native of Great Britain, abundant 

 from John o' Groat's to Land's End. It is indigenous 

 to Europe, North Africa, and North America. It 

 grows to a large and handsome tree, eighty to one 

 hundred feet in height, with a girth often approaching 

 twenty feet. The leaves are pinnate, with five or six 

 pairs of leaflets, serrated. The flowers, which appear 

 before the leaves expand, are small, often numerous, 

 and of a dark purple colour. The succeeding fruit, 

 the well-known keys or " lock and keys," are long- 

 shaped, thin, seed vessels (Fig. 1). On some trees 

 these are very abundant, and being firmly attached to 

 the twig often remain on the tree all the year round. 

 These numerous bunches, turning brown to black in 

 late autumn, when all the leaves have fallen, are 

 very conspicuous ; in fact, the ash may be readily 

 distinguished even in mid-winter by these clusters. 

 The wood, although the ash is a quick grower, is very 

 valuable, on account of its toughness and elasticity ; 

 these qualities it possesses to a greater degree than the 

 wood of any other P.ritish tree. Both Greeks and 

 Romans made their spear handles from its tough 

 saplings, and used it for agricultural implements ; for 

 the latter purpose it is still in demand. The carpenter, 

 wheelwright, cooper, and turner, all find it excellent 

 wood for their various purposes ; cabinet makers value 

 the knotty parts of the trunk and roots, which they 

 call " green ebony" ; for walking sticks, blocks, oars, etc., 

 there is no better wood. In point of value it comes next 

 to the oak itself, and before it in this respect — that it 

 matures its wood at a much earlier period. An ash pole 

 three inches in diameter is as durable and valuable for any 

 purpose to which it can be applied as the timber of the 

 full-grown tree. 



The ash is one of the last of our trees to put on its 

 summer robe — 



*' Tlu' tender ash delays to clothe heivell' 

 When all the woods are green." 



It is also among the first to cast oft" its covering. Perhaps 

 this is why it has been called the " \'enus of the Wood," 

 but we rather suspect it owes this title more to its grace- 

 fulness of form than to its love of nudeness. 



The flowering ash, Omus, is cultivated in Sicily princi- 

 pally on account of the sweet sap it exudes called 

 " manna"; it grows twenty to twenty-five feet high. The 

 sap flows spontaneously during the greater lieats of 

 summer from trees in the most favoured situations, but 

 oftrner it is ob'ained from '.ncisions made through the 



hark. The clear sap speedily hardens on exposure to the 

 air, and is the " manna " of commerce. When fresh it is 

 nutrit'ous and agreeable to the taste, and is used by the 



i?lG. 2. — Ash at Huuterstou, Ayrshire, known as " The Resting Tree." 



natives as food ; but as it turns old it acquires laxative 

 qualities. 



Fig. '2, a fine ash with a girth of over sixteen feet at five 

 feet from the ground, is growing at Ifunterston, -Vyrshire, 

 and is known as " The it'^sting Tree." Popular weather 

 lore has various sayings as to whether the summer will 

 prove a dry one or the opposite, according as the ash comes 

 into leaf boforb or after the oak ; but these rhymes seem to 

 be diametrically opposite in different pans of the country. 



WAVES. -X. 



KIPPLING. 



By VAroHAN CoRNisn, M.Sc. 



ON shallow shores the sand is rippled by tlie waves, 

 forming a regular series of ridges and furrows, 

 ranged parallel to the wave front. The pattern 

 often reniaius when the ebbing tide loaves a stretch 

 of wet sand behind it, but the receding waters 

 blur the ridges, rounding off the sharp edge of the perfect 



