THE OAK. 



59 



has, however, proved that it is composed entirely 

 of Durmast Oak. This roof has stood for more 

 than three hundred years. The foundation on 

 which the stone piers of old London bridge were 

 laid consisted of huge piles of timber, which when 

 taken up were found to be perfectly sound, 

 though they must have been driven upwards of 

 six hundred years. The wood employed is from 

 trees of the same species. Most of the timber 

 found in old buildings which was formerly be- 

 lieved to be Chestnut, is now known to be the 

 wood of the Durmast Oak. In the year 1844, 

 there was raised from the bottom of a lake at 

 Davey Strand, between Dublin and Cavan, a huge 

 canoe, which had been hollowed out of the trunk 

 of a tree of the same kind. It measured no less 

 than forty feet in length, the bottom being four 

 feet three inches in diameter at one end, and about 

 three feet at the other. On a fair computation, 

 the circumference of this tree must have been at 

 least twenty-one feet at the base, and fifteen feet 

 at the height of forty feet from the ground. The 

 antiquity of this rehc is almost too great to be 

 speculated on. Much of the wood-work in the 

 old border-fortresses of Wales, and the doors of 

 pews in ancient churches, are made from the same 

 tree. The principal difference apparent to the 

 eye between the timber of the two species is, that 

 Quercus robur is plentifully furnished with medul- 

 lary rays, called by carpenters ^^silver-grain," of 

 which the other species is almost entirely destitute, 

 resembling in this respect the Chestnut : from this 

 similarity have probably sprung the numerous 

 mistakes of the one wood for the other. On the 

 whole, it would seem, that whatever good quality 



