Popular Science Montldy 



Did the French Borrow this Idea 

 from the Ancient Druids? 



THERE are a number of trees in France 

 which harbor picturesque Httle chapels. 

 One of the most unusual is the oak of 

 Allouville, a Norman village in the depart- 

 ment of Seine Inferieure, in which the oak 

 stands on a level piece of ground some 

 distance from the church. Its trunk, 

 which is now almost com- 

 pletely hollow, has a cir- 

 cumference at about 

 three and a half feet 

 above the soil of 

 more than thirty 

 feet, and its top- 

 most branches 

 are nearly six- 

 t\- feet from 

 the ground. 

 This oak con- 

 tains two al- 

 tars, one above 

 the other; the 

 lower one is 

 dedicated to 

 Our Lady of 

 Peace and was 

 constructed 

 towards the 

 end of the 

 seventeenth 

 centur\' by a 

 former priest of 

 the parish, the 

 Abbe du De- 

 t roi t . The 

 chapel above 

 the one to Our 

 Lady of Peace 

 is of much later 

 date and is 

 called the 

 Chapel of the 

 Cross. 



The yew tree of La Haye-de-Routout, in 

 the Department of Eure, is of an equally 

 venerable age. The circumference of the 

 trunk is about twenty-nine feet and its 

 greatest height is fifty-seven feet. The 

 little altar with a cross above the pedi- 

 ment is placed within the hollow trunk of 

 the famous tree and the interior of the 

 chapel is reached by ascending a step. On 

 certain days a priest comes to celebrate 

 mass at the altar, which is decorated with 

 a group in car\ed wood representing Saint 

 Anne 'of the Yews" and the Virgin. Other 

 districts of France also contain tree chapels. 



201 



Not 



An altar in a giant oak in Allouville, a village of Normandy. 

 The tree is nearly sixty feet tall and about thirty feet around 



Why Are Abandoned Flour Mills 

 Utilized as Lighting Stations? 



WHY are abandoned flour mills not 

 used for lighting stations? Water- 

 power is to be had freely and abundantly, 

 since the flour mill is nearly always the 

 nucleus around which the oldest of our 

 rural settlements have been built. 



The question suggested itself to the 

 editor of this magazine who, 

 in turn, asked one of the 

 largest electric manufac- 

 turing companies in 

 the country- to give 

 an answer. After 

 an inquiry- among 

 engineers in 

 this plant and 

 letters from 

 more than six 

 hundred mill- 

 ing establish- 

 ments all over 

 the country-, if 

 was proved that 

 no abandoned 

 flour mills had 

 e\-er been 

 transformed 

 into lighting 

 stations. 



On the other 

 hand the can- 

 vass brought 

 forth the in- 

 formation that 

 many milling 

 firms furnish 

 electric light 

 and power in 

 addition to 

 the regular 

 products. 



In this con- 

 nection it is 

 various reasons 

 for not using 

 of waterpower. 



interesting to note the 

 given by mill owners 

 electric power in lieu 

 Replies gathered from an extensive circular 

 letter campaign show conclusively that the 

 average miller would like to avail himself 

 of the electric drive, but the economy of 

 waterpower, the real or imaginary' high 

 cost of electricity, or the sacrifice of an 

 expensive steam plant holds him back. 



Out of six hundred and fift>'-eight replies 

 only ten wrote that they did not see the 

 need for electric drive or were not in- 

 terested in statistics concerning it. 



