CLASS XXI. ORDER VII. ] QUERCUS. 1209 
and their flesh thus fed is esteemed sweeter and finer flavoured than 
any other. 
But to trace out the natural or traditional history of the Oak, would 
be to make this King of the Forest the chronicler of the human race 
from the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Gauls, the Goths, 
and ultimately interwoven with our history of the Druidical priesthood 
of old: and in our day the pride of the nation is the enormous power 
of her navy, or, as it is often called, the “ Wooden Walls of Old 
England,” and the vast extent of her shipping, but the limits of this 
work forbid even the mention of much that is of interest. 
The British Naval Oak is unrivalled in the strength and durability 
of its timber, and the enormous quantity of it that is required for the 
navy may be calculated, from each seventy-four gun ship consuming 
in building two thousand tons of wood, the produce of about two 
thousand well grown trees. When to it is considered the vast 
quantity of Oak wood that is required for building commercial vessels 
of all burdens, and also the multifarious uses to which it is applied 
in the constructions of docks, wharfs, canals, flood gates, and endless 
domestic purposes, it would seem almost impossible that our little 
Island should yield a sufficient supply, especially as it is estimated 
that an acre of ground can only grow about forty trees to perfection 
as timber fit for shipping. 
The bark of the Oak is not less esteemed than the wood, from the 
great quantity of stringent matter which it contains, and is the most 
valued of all the barks for the tanning of leather. From its 
astringency it is employed medicinally as an external application, and 
sometimes combined with aromatics as a tonic in sanguinous dis- 
charges; but this peculiarity of the bark is far surpassed in the 
adventitious productions known by the name of galls: of these 
there are various kinds, found on different parts of the tree and leaves 
The only one of the galls of great importance to mention is the nut- 
gail, brought chiefly from Aleppo. The Q. infectoria, upon which it 
grows, is a small shrubby species of Oak, common in all parts of 
Asia Minor. These galls are, as before mentioned, produced by the 
irritation of the ova of hymenopterous insects, deposited in its dif- 
ferent parts, as the roots, bark, buds, leaves, &e.: from the large pro- 
portion of tanning which they contain, they have been long used for 
the purpose of dying black, and in the manufactory of black ink, &e. 
Quercitron, a yellow dye, is produced from the bark of Q. tinctoria, 
and the well-known substance cork is the cuticle of Q. Suber. 
The enormous size to which Oaks grow, and the vast period of their 
existence, is extraordinary. Tortsworth Oak measures round fifty 
two feet, and the famous Cowthorpe Oak, at its base, seventy-eight, 
and is believed to be between sixteen and eighteen hundred years old, 
and in the hollow of its trunk the villagers say seventy persons at a 
time have been assembled. The Oak at Kidlington has been used as 
