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NOTICES OF AUTHORS. 



thence no thicltening of the hole heing necessary 

 for supi^ort, no wood ^proper had heen deposited 

 on the trunk save the annual rings of lineal tubes 

 to convey the sap, which constituted a brittle light 

 wood, of very slight lateral adhesion After the 

 ditch was filled up, and the surrounding ground 

 ploughed and manured, the increased supply of mois- 

 ture and nourishment had induced a considerable 

 new extension of top (which was quite visible in fine 

 young healthy branches rising from a stunted base), 

 and consequent necessary thickening of stem by an- 

 nual layers of proper dense wood, along with the 

 lineal annual tubes. 



No. 2. A beautifiil most luxuriant growing oak, 

 in one of the sweetest sunny spots of the sweet- 

 est valley of our Highlands. This tree, of near- 

 ly two hundred solid feet of timber, and 80 years 

 of age, was growing upon the bare shelf of a 

 sound mica- schist rock. From underneath this 

 shelf, several feet down in front, a most exuberant 

 .spring welled out, and the roots spread down over 



* The want of the annual layers of cellular tissue of wood, 

 exterior to and separating the annual lineal tubes, is so com- 

 plete in some cases of slow growth, that the timber seems only a 

 light congeries of tubes, without arrangement ; hence the age of 

 the tree cannot be determined but by a section of the root-bulb, 

 ivhere the growths are larger, and the deposits regular^ 



