9 8 
they ufually are) eaten raw; the Indians fell them to 
the EngliJJi for twelve pence the bufhel. 1 
Sores upon the Shins; and for Bruifed Wounds and 
Birch, white and black; the bark of Birch is ufed by 
the India?is for bruifed Wounds and Cuts, boyled very 
tender, and ftampt betwixt two ftones to a Plaifter, and the 
decoftion thereof poured into the Wound; And alfo to 
fetch the Fire out of Burns and Scalds. 5 
1 Castanea vesca, Gaertn. ; common to Europe and America. Our chestnut 
is considered to differ from the European only as an American variety of a species 
common to both continents might be expected to. "The Indians have an art of 
drying their chestnuts, and so to preserve them in their barns for a dainty all the 
year." — R. Williams, I. c. 
2 Neither Wood nor R. Williams makes mention of it. The younger Michaux 
considered our beech distinct from the European; but Mr. Nuttall makes it only 
a variety of it; while Prof. Gray puts both trees in his list of " very close repre- 
sentative species." — Statistics, cf-c, c, p. 8l. 
3 Fraxinus, L. Our species are peculiar to this continent. I cannot account 
for Wood's saying, "It is different from the ash of England; being brittle and 
good for little, so that walnut is used for it." — Nevj-Eng. Prospcd, chap. vi. 
4 Sorbus, L. (Gerard, p. 1473). Our mountain-ash (S. Americana, Willd.) is 
quite near to the quicken, or mountain-ash of the north of Europe (S. auctcparia, 
L.) ; but hardly, perhaps, to be reduced to an American variety of it, as the 
elder Michaux (Fl. Amer., vol. i. p. 290) proposed. Compare Gray, Statistics, 
&c, /. c, p. 82. 
5 Except the small white birch (B. populifolia, Ait.), which Mr. Spach reduces 
to a variety of the European B. alba, L., — in which he is sustained by Prof. Gray 
(Man., p. 411), — and the dwarf-birch (B. nana, L.) of our alpine regions, all our 
Beech? 
AJh* 
Quick-beam, or Wild-AJJi? 
Cuts. 
