62 TIMBER AND TIMBER TREES. [chap. iv. 



but if one or more complete cups be present, especially 

 if they are large, it could not safely be sawn longi- 

 tudinally down the middle, as the centre or cup part 

 would drop out, leaving in each half a deeply-grooved 

 channel, equal to the semi-diameter of the cup-defect. 

 The log in this case could, therefore, only be used 

 advantageously by appropriating it to some purpose 

 where the full growth might be employed. 



The cup-defect occurs in perfectly sound and healthy- 

 looking trees, and there is not anything to indicate its 

 presence to the surveyor while the tree is standing. It 

 can only, therefore, be dealt with when discovered in the 

 log, after being felled. This defect is, to some extent, 

 local, and is especially so among the Oaks, it being more 

 frequently met with in the Sicilian Oak than in, perhaps, 

 any other. It occurs in Virginian Pitch Pine, and it is 

 often found in Lignum Vitae. It is worthy of notice 

 that whatever may be the cause of the cup-shake in the 

 last-named wood, which is grown extensively in St. 

 Domingo, latitude i8° to 20° N., and where the tempera- 

 ture of the winter is rarely below 60°, it cannot have 

 suffered from frost. 



