Large British Oaks. 109 



In the square state. 



T- PEET. 



One piece growing from the side, about 12 feet 



from the ground, squared in nine pieces . 106 

 One piece damaged by felling . . . .52 



28 ends of crooks from different branches not 



less than 6 inches in srirth . . .118 



Or 29 tons, 35 feet . . . 1195 



This account, somewhat irregular in its arrangement, 

 though there is no reason to think inaccurate as to number, 

 weight, and measure, appears by itself somewhat extraordi- 

 nary, but is marvellously surpassed by the next example, that 

 in gigantic proportions may be said literally to cast it into the 

 shade. The ensuing statement, put into the hands of the 

 writer of this article, some years ago, by one who was resident 

 near the place where this enormous tree grew, is detailed in a 

 different but more satisfactory form. Like the preceding, it 

 stood on an estate from which it took its name of 



THE GOLTNOS OAK. 



Golynos is about four miles from the town of Newport, 

 and is in the parish of Bassaleg. The tree was purchased by 

 his Majesty's Purveyor of Plymouth Dockyard and Dean 

 Forest, in the year 1810, for one hundred guineas, and was 

 felled and converted in the same year. Five men were each, 

 twenty days stripping and cutting it down, and a pair of 

 sawyers were constantly employed one hundred and thirty- 

 eight days in its conversion. The expense of stripping, felling, 

 and sawing, exclusive of superintending the conversion or 

 hauling any part of it, was eighty-two pounds. It was felled 

 in separate parts, and stages were erected by the workmen to 

 stand on to cut down the valuable limbs. Previous to being 

 felled it was divested of its brushwood, which was placed as a 

 bed to prevent the timber from bursting in falling. The main 

 trunk of the tree was nine feet and a half in diameter, and 

 consequently no saw could be found long enough to cut it 

 down ; two saws were therefore brazed together. In cutting 

 the main trunk through, a stone was discovered six inches in 

 diameter, six feet from the butt, and three feet in a diametrical 

 direction from the rind, round which the timber was perfectly 

 sound. The rings in its butt being reckoned, it was dis- 

 covered that this tree had been improving upwards of eour 

 hundred years ! and, as many of its lateral branches were dead 

 and some broken off, it is presumed that it must have stood 

 little short of a century since it attained maturity. When 



