542 
Q U E 
& U I 
QUO 
be hollow, but bv the trifling increase I con- 
clude it not sound.”. These dim-mrions, 
however, are exceeded by those ol’tiie Bod- 
dmgton oak. it grows in a piece of rich grass 
land, called the old orchard ground, be- 
longing to Boddington mairor-farm, lying 
near the turnpike-road between Cheltenham 
and Tewksbury, in the vale of Gloucester. 
The stem is remarkably collected at the root, 
the sides of its trunk being much more up- 
right than those of large trees in general ; and 
yet its circumference at the ground is about 
20 paces; measuring with a two-foot rule, it 
is more than 18 yards. At three feet high it 
is 42 feet, and where smallest, ?. e. from live 
to sixTeet high, it is 36 feet. At six feet it 
swells out larger, and forms an enormous 
head, which has been furnished with huge, 
and probably extensive, arms. But time and 
the fury ot the wind have robbed it of much 
of its grandeur, and the greatest extent of 
arm in 1 783 was eight yards from the stem. 
In the Gentleman’s Magazine for May 
.1794, we have an account of an oak-tree 
growing in Penshurst-park in Kent, together 
with an engraving. It is called the bear or 
bare oak, from being supposed to resemble 
that which Camden thought gave name to 
the county of Berkshire. The dimensions of 
the tree are these : 
Feet. Inches. 
Girth close to the ground 35 6 
Ditto one foot from ditto 27 6 
Ditto five feet from ditto 24 0 
Height taken by shadow 73 0 
Girth of lowest, but not largest 
limb 6 9 
With respect to longevity, Linnxus gives . 
account of an oak 260 years old ; but we have " 
had traditions of some in England (how far to 
be depended upon we know not) that have 
attained to more than double that age. Mr. 
Marsham, in a letter to T homas Beevor, Esq. 
Bath Papers, vol. i. p. 79, makes some very 
ingenious calculations on the age of trees, 
and concludes from the increase of the Bent- 
ley oak, &c. that the Fortworth chesnut is 
1 100 years old. 
Besides the grand purposes to which the 
timber is applied in navigation and architec- 
ture, and the bark in tanning of leather, 
there are other uses of less consequence, to 
which the different parts of this tree have 
been referred. The highlanders use the bark 
to dye their yarn of a brown colour, or, mix- 
ed with copperas, of a black colour. Oak 
saw-dust is also a principal ingredient in dye- 
ing drabs, especially in fustian. The acorns 
are a good food to fatten swine and turkeys; 
and after the severe winter of the year 1709, 
the poor people in France were miserably 
constrained to eat them themselves. Then- 
are, however, acorns produced from another 
species of oak, which are eaten to this day in 
ppai.n and Greece, with as much pleasure as 
G 
chesnuts, without the dreadful compulsion o; 
hunger. 
Quercus marika, the sea oak. Sec Fu- 
cus. 
QITEIUA, a genus of the trigynia order, 
in the triandria class of plants, and in the na- 
tural method ranking under the 22d order, 
caryophyllei. The calyx is pentaphyllous ; 
there is no corolla ; the capsule is unilocular, 
and trivalved, with one seed. There are 
three species, viz. hispanica, canadensis, and 
trichotonia. 
QUICK, or Quickset hedge, among 
gardeners, denotes all live hedges, of what- 
soever sort of plants they are composed, to 
distinguish them from dead hedges; but in a 
more strict sense of the word, it is restrained 
to those planted with the hawthorn, or Cra- 
taegus oxyacantha, under which name these 
young plants, or sets, are sold by the nursery- 
gardeners, who raise them for sale. See Cra- 
taegus. 
Quick- silver. See Mercury. 
QUILTING, a method of sewing two 
pieces of silk, linen, or stuff, on each other, 
with wool or cotton between them; by work- 
ing them all over in the form of chequer or 
diamond work, or in flowers. The same 
name is also given to the stuff so worked. 
QUINCE. See Pyrus. 
QUINCH AMALIA, a genus of the pen- 
tandria monogynia class and order. The calyx 
is inferior, live-toothed ; corolla tubular, su- 
perior; anth. sessile; seed one. There is 
one species, a herb of Chili. 
QUINCUNX, in Roman antiquity, de- 
notes any thing that consists of five-twelfth 
parts of another, but particularly of the as. 
Quincunx order, in gardening, a plan- 
tation of trees, disposed originally in a square, 
and consisting of five trees, one at each cor- 
ner, and a fifth in the middle; or a quincunx 
is the figure of a plantation of trees, disposed 
in several rows, both length and breadthwise, 
in such a manner, that the first tree in the se- 
cond row commences in the centre of the 
square formed by the two first trees in the 
first row, and the two first in the third, re- 
sembling the figure of the five at cards. 
QUINDECAGON, in geometry, a plane 
figure with fifteen sides and 15 angles, which, 
if the sides are all equal, is termed a regular 
quindecagon, and irregular when otherwise. 
The side of a regular quindecagon inscrib- 
ed in a circle is equal in power to the half-dif- 
ference between the side of the equilateral 
triangle, and the side of the pentagon in- 
scribed in the same circle; also the difference 
of the perpendiculars let fall on both sides, 
taken together. 
QUINQUINA. See Cinchona, and 
Pharmacy. 
QUINTILE, iu astronomy, an aspect of 
the planets when they are 72 degrees distant 
from one another, or a fifth part of the zodiac. 
QUIRE of paper, a quantity of 24 or 25 
heets. 
QU ISQUA LIS, a genus of the monogynia 
order, in the decandria class uf plants, and in 
the natural method ranking under the 3lst 
order, vepreculae. T he calyx is quinqueful 
and filiform; the petals five; the fruit is 
a quiuque-angular plum. There is only one 
species, viz. lndica, a shrub of the East In- 
dies. 
QUI TAM, in law, is where, an action is 
brought, or an information exhibited, against 
a person, on a penal statute, at the suit »»f the 
king and the party or informer, when the 
penalty for breach of the statute is directed 
to he divided between them ; in that case, the 
informer prosecutes as well for the king as 
himself. 
QUIT-CLAIM, in law, signifies a release 
of any action that one person has against an- 
other. It signifies also a quitting a claim or 
title to lands, &c. 
Quit-rent, in law, a small rent that is 
payable by the tenants of most manors, 
whereby the tenant goes quit and free from 
ail other services. Antiently this payment 
was called white-rent, on account that it was 
paid in silver coin, and to distinguish it from 
rent-corn. 
QUOIN, or Coin, on board a ship, a 
wedge fastened on the deck close to the 
breech of the carriage of a gun, to keep it 
firm up to the ship’s side. 
QUOITS, a kind of exercise or game 
known among the undents under the name 
discus. 
QUO MINUS, is a writ which issues out 
of the court of exchequer to the king’s farmer 
or debtor, for debt, trespass, &c. Though 
this writ was formerly granted only to the 
king’s tenants or debtors, the practice now is 
become general for the plaintiff to surmise, 
that by the wrong the defendant does him, 
he is the less able to satisfy his debt to the 
king, by which means jurisdiction is given to 
the court of exchequer to determine the 
cause. T his writ is to take the body of the 
defendant in like manner as the capias in the 
common pleas, and the writ of latitat in the 
king’s bench. 
Quo-warranto, in law, a writ which 
lies against a person or corporation that 
usurps any franchise or liberty against the 
king ; as to have a fair, market, or the like, - 
in order to oblige the usurper to shew by 
what right and title he holds or claims sucU 
franchise. This writ also lies for mis-user or 
non-user of privileges granted. The attor- 
ney-general may exhibit a quo-warranto in 
the crown-office against any particular per- 
sons, or bodies politic or corporate, who use 
any franchise or privilege without having a 
legal grant or prescription for the same ; and 
a judgment obtained upon it is final, as being 
a writ of right. 
