20 



THE OAK, 



new dignity to the ruined tower and Gothic 

 arch ; by stretching its wdld, moss-grown branches 

 athwart their ivied walls, it gives them a kind of 

 majesty coeval with itself ; at the same time its 

 propriety is still preserved, if it throw its arms 

 over the purling brook, or the mantling pool, 

 where it beholds 



' Its reverend image in th' expanse below.'" 



The diameter of the trunk of the Oak where it 

 first leaves the ground, is generally much greater 

 than it is a few feet higher. To this circumstance, 

 and to the fact that its roots are not nearly so 

 liable to rot in the ground as those of other trees, 

 it may be attributed that it is very rarely blown 

 up by the roots. That skilful engineer, Mr. 

 Smeaton, is stated to have taken his idea of the 

 form of the Eddystone Lighthouse from observing 

 the proportions of an Oak trunk. Britton, in his 



Beauties of Devon," thus writes : The object 

 from which Mr. Smeaton conceived his idea of re- 

 building the Eddystone Lighthouse was the waist 

 or bole of a large spreading Oak, which, though 

 subject to a very great impulse from the agitation 

 of violent winds, resists them all, partly from its 

 elasticity, and partly from its natural strength. 

 Considering the particular figure of the tree, as 

 connected with its roots, which lie hid below 

 ground, Mr. Smeaton observed that it rose from 

 the surface with a large swelling base, which at 

 the height of its ow^n diameter is generally re- 

 duced by an elegant curve, concave to the eye, to 

 a diameter less by at least one-third, and some- 

 times to half its original base. From thence its 



