202 



NOTICES OF AUTHORS. 



the soft texture of the heart-wood of the tree, we 

 shall not press it as a proof on either side of the 

 controversy. Perhaps sober reasoners may think 

 this all phantasy, and conclude, that the tree, from 

 deficiency of substantial earthy food, and subsisting 

 principally on slops (being mainly nourished by 

 drinking of the delicious well), would, like an ani- 

 mal under similar circumstances, be of soft flabby 

 consistency. 



The above fact is opposed to common opinion — ^a 

 Highlander always choosing his oaken staff from off 

 a rock, as being most to depend upon ; yet perhaps 

 this preference is owing to some association with the 

 hardness of the rock itself 



No. 3. We found a sycamore plane (Acer pseudo- 

 platanus) in the same row with other sycamores, and 

 about the same size, so exceeding hard that it could 

 scarcely be cut down by mattock and hatchet, where- 

 as the others adjacent were comparatively of mode- 

 rate hardness, though differing considerably in hard- 

 ness from each other ; the soil in this case was very 

 equable, being of Carse clay. The peculiar hard- 

 ness of this tree could only be attributable to a 

 harder variety. Indeed, the difference of quality in 

 timber depends chiefly on the infinite varieties ex- 

 isting in what is called Species, though soil and cli- 



