BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 251 
sible to reach any very definite conclusion upon either of these ques- 
tions except by accumulating a much larger number of direct estimations 
of the ash in barkless wood than have hitherto been published. For the 
present, it will be enough to urge that the. evidence now existing is on 
the whole unfavorable to the acceptance of those determinations of 
the amounts of ashes in wood that have been made by burning charcoal 
instead of the original wood. An exception to this general conclusion 
should perhaps be made with respect to the soft resinous woods, like pine 
and spruce and fir; for the differences between the ash determinations 
that have been made by different experimenters, operating upon these 
woods, are but small, no matter what process was employed. Thus, for 
example, Violette, working with charcoal, got 0.20% of ash in barkless 
Scotch pine-wood; and Berthier (see his ‘‘ Voie Seche,’’ p. 249) got, in 
a somewhat similar way, 0.40%, in both pine and spruce; while in another 
pine (‘‘ Pin maritime’’) Violette got 0.23% of ash But in barkless 
spruce-wood, burnt directly, Schroeder got only from 0.22 to 0.30% of ash, 
and Wunder only from 0.31 to 0.39%. 
