328 



NOTICES OF AUTHORS. 



what he says of larch being heavier iu propor- 

 tion to its bulk" than Scots fir, and that " spruce is 

 very easily wrought, and tries the carpenter's tools 

 less than any other kind of wood used in building," 

 w^ould lead us to suspect that oui' author has had a 

 very limited acquaintance mth his subject. A num- 

 ber of different soils will produce large Scots fir where 

 larches will be generally rotted and hollow in the 

 heart, by twenty years of age *. This ignorance of 

 om* author is the more glaring, as it is coupled with 



* The matured timber of the larch, in some cases, remains for 

 a considerable time stained before the rot proceeds rapidly; in 

 other cases, the rot makes quick progress ; in this rapid decompo- 

 sition, certam kinds of fungi assist greatly. When once seated, 

 they seem to form a putrid atmosphere or tainted circle around 

 them, either by their living exhalations, or corrupt emanations when 

 dead, which is poisonous to the less vital parts of superior life, and 

 also expedites the commencement of decay in sound dead orga- 

 nic matter, such as timber, thus furthering the decomposition so 

 far as to render it suitable food for their foul appetite, and paving 

 the way to their further progress. 



How their seeds enter into the heart of a growing tree having 

 no external rottenness, is not very obvious^ unless they are inhal- 

 ed or imbibed by the root tendrils : from the resemblance which 

 the growth of some of them has to fermentation, it is not even 

 very improbable that the animalcules of supposed molecular or 

 inferior life, have, of themselves, a disposition to unite into some 

 of these aggregates without the presence of any disposing germ. 



The modifications of material attractions, by the varied germs of 

 superior life — the fixity of some of these deposites after life is gone 

 — the resolution of these into inferior animalcular, or even molecu- 



