90 



THE OAK. 



enough, tlie King's carriage was sent purposely 

 from Portsmouth to convey it to the Dock-yard. 

 This tree was sold in the first place for 40/. ; was 

 bought of that purchaser by a timber-merchant for 

 100/,j who is supposed to have cleared 100/. more ; 

 which he might very well do, for the contents 

 amounted to thirty-two loads of hewed timber, 

 which, at half-a-crown a foot — no unusual price 

 for naval crooks — amounts to 200/. precisely, be- 

 sides faggots, &c., sufiicient to defray the expenses. 

 The breadth of the tree across, near the ground, 

 where it was cut, was twelve feet, and it had 

 above three hundred rings of annual growth." 



The Gelonos Oak, which was cut do^Mi in 

 1810, grew^ about four miles from Newport, in 

 Momnouthshire, The main trunk was ten feet 

 long, and produced four hundred and fifty cubic 

 feet of timber ; one limb, three hundred and fifty- 

 five feet ; one ditto, four hundred and seventy- 

 two feet ; one ditto, one hundred and thirteen 

 feet ; and six other limbs of inferior size averaged 

 ninety-three feet each, making a total of two 

 thousand four hundred and twenty-six feet of 

 convertible timber. The bark was estimated at 

 six tons ; but, as some of the very heavy body- 

 bark w^as stolen out of the barge at Newport, the 

 exact weight is not known. Five men were 

 twenty days stripping and cutting down this tree ; 

 and two sawyers were five months converting it, 

 Sundays excepted. The main trunk was nine 

 and a half feet in diameter ; and, in sawing it 

 through, a stone was discovered six feet from the 

 ground, above a yard in the body of the tree, 

 through which the saw cut. The stone was about 

 six inches in diameter, and was completely shut 



