AUGER. 
usually grows to the height of about six feet ; its 
leaves have some resemblance in shape, size, and 
texture, to those of the laurel, but are larger, 
less fleshy, more pointed, and profusely blotched 
with a lightish-yellow or creamy white; and 
its flowers are apetalous, and appear in May 
and June. It was introduced to Great Britain 
from Japan in 1783; and it required, for some 
time, to be treated as a tender plant; but it is 
| now quite hardy, and has become one of the 
most widely diffused, as it is decidedly one of 
the most handsome, members of our shrubberies. 
It belongs to the Linnean class, Diwcia tetran- 
dria, whose female flowers are produced on dif- 
ferent plants from the male flowers; and only 
the female plants of aucuba appear to have yet 
been introduced to Great Britain. But these 
are easily and multitudinously propagated in 
the nurseries, by means of cuttings in any ordi- 
nary garden soil. 
AUGER. An implement for boring. Small- 
sized augers are used by several classes of handi- 
craftsmen, particularly by carpenters and other 
workers in timber; but large-sized augers are 
used for boring the ground, in order to ascertain 
the character of subsoil, to discover springs, to 
make artesian wells, to draw off water from land, 
to assist certain operations of draining, and to 
search for coals and other strata of useful min- 
erals. An auger for trying subsoil should be 
about an inch in diameter; its bit should be 
large ; its summit should be provided with a 
transverse iron handle, for wringing the bit into 
the ground; and on piercing every successive 
depth of six inches, the implement should be 
drawn up to cleanse the bit, and examine the 
specimen of soil or subsoil which it contains. An 
auger for this work may have a length of ten 
feet, six feet, or only three feet, according to the 
depth at which the subsoil is to be tried. An 
auger for very deep boring, whether to assist 
draining operations, or to search for springs or 
minerals, consists of a wimble or shell, and a 
series of rods. The wimble is usually from 24 to 
34 inches in diameter, and about 16 inches in 
the length of its hollow; and, except that its 
sides come closer to one another, it is constructed 
in nearly the same manner as the wimble used 
by carpenters, The rods are each about four 
feet in length, and one inch in diameter ; they 
screw into one another to any desired length of 
a series; and, to assist their united strength, 
they are made 1} inch thick at the joints. But 
when any stratum of rock or other very resisting 
material is to be pierced, either a punch or a 
chisel is used instead of the wimble,—the punch 
of the same thickness as the rods, and with a 
sharpened point,—and the chisel an inch or 1} 
inch broad at the face, and kept very sharp in 
the edge. Boring to assist draining operations 
ought never to be practised till after the drain is 
cut, and ought to have for its object simply the 
perforating of any retentive stratum which lies 
AURANTIUM. 293 
between the bottom of the drain and the strata 
containing the spring. See articles Drarnine and 
Artestan WELLS. 
AUGUST. See CanEenpar. 
AURACARIA. A genus of evergreen, orna- 
mental, timber trees, of the cone-bearing tribe. 
A tree of the imbricated species, A wracaria imbri- 
cata, is a noble object, most exotic in appearance, 
and far more curious and arresting than any 
other exogenous tree with which we are ac- 
quainted. It naturally graces the more south- 
erly plains of South America; it was introduced 
to Great Britain from Chili in 1796; it was at 
first of decidedly tender habit, but is becoming 
accustomed to our climate; and it promises to 
be, in a few years, very extensively diffused, and 
to impart a new and very interesting feature to 
our shrubberies and woods. It usually attains, 
in its native country, a height of 150 feet, but 
figures exceedingly well with us as a tall shrub; 
it has the same kind of pyramidal outline and 
horizontal ramification which distinguishes the 
firs and the cedars; and its leaves are so remark- 
ably imbricated as to appear like edgy and an- 
gular convolutions along the branches. Some 
botanists, but not with general consent, have 
called it Columbea quadrifaria.—The Brazilian 
species, Auracaria Braziliana, was introduced to 
Great Britain from Brazil in 1819, and usually 
attains in its native country a height of about 
100 feet; but as yet is of very tender constitution 
in our climate.—The tall species, sometimes called 
the Norfolk Island pine, Auwracaria excelsa, and | 
another species called Cunningham’s, Auracaria 
Cunninghami, have recently been erected into a 
Separate genus under the name of aliingia, yet 
will, for some time, continue to be better known 
as auracarias. ‘The Norfolk island species is, be- 
yond all question, one of the most beautiful and 
magnificent trees in the world; it attains, on | 
Norfolk island, a height of upwards of 200 feet, 
and a magnitude of corresponding stupendous- 
ness; it displays a symmetry and an elegance, 
which would grace any pot plant of the green- 
house ; and even the few dwarfish specimens 
of it which grow within the narrow limits of 
our conservatories, though poor and pitiful re- 
presentatives of the massive and soaring tree, in- 
stantly arrest the eye as the very beau ideal of 
dendritic beauty. This species was introduced 
to Great Britain from Norfolk island in 1796.— 
The Cunningham species is very much smaller 
than the preceding, and was introduced to Great 
Britain from New Holland in 1824.—All the spe- 
cies of auracaria are raised in frames, from seeds, 
in a mixture of peat and loam; but young plants, 
especially of Auracaria imbricata, may readily 
be obtained at the public nurseries. 
AURANTIUM. The sweet orange-tree, or 
Citrus aurantium. See Oranes. The aurantium, 
though only a species, forms the type of the na- 
tural order aurantiaceee. The number of genera 
in this order is eleven; and the number of spe- 
id 
