9 
meeting that from the other. (See figs. 8 and 9.) Usually the bark 
is pressed out so that a perfect union forms between these two, and 
in almost all cases the wood grows firmly along the dead wood of 
the blaze, filling out all its depressions and producing an exact matrix 
of the old blaze, so that any inscriptions are faithfully recorded in 
this cover as well as the old wood. After the covering is complete 
the blaze ceases, of course, to be visible, and its position is merely 
Fia. 10.—Blaze twenty-three years after cut was made, the later annual rings having assumed 
the normal growth over the wound: front view. 
indicated by a depression corresponding to the thinner and smoother 
bark on the old blaze and the thickened remains of the old rampart- 
like callus. (See figs. 8, 9, 10, and 11.) 
In some cases even the large blazes of ‘‘ witness” trees have been 
covered entirely in twenty-five and even fewer years, while in many 
cases the slow growth of the old trees never entirely obliterates 
the marks. 
