species Q. regalis, and the Durmast oak Q. Robur. (See Amœnitates Querner p. 3.)

(1550.) The timber of the naval oak, which is to us invaluable, was required during the late war in such immense quantities to meet the urgent demands of our dock-yards, that the British forests were thinned of their larger trees, and serious apprehensions once entertained that our native sources of supply would be exhausted. Indeed, it is a well known fact, that long before the peace a scarcity was felt, especially of the larger kind of timber fit for ships of the line; and so great was this want, that it has been stated on good authority, if Sir Robert Seppings had not contrived the means of substituting straight timber for that of different forms and dimensions, before considered indispensable, the building of new ships must entirely have ceased.

This scarcity excited the attention of the government and the public; and, since then, many patriotic persons have made large plantations of oak, and parts of the royal forests have been dedicated to the growth of this valuable tree; so that, in future, notwithstanding the large quantities required, the supply will in all probability be equal to the demand. Of the extent of this demand some general notion may be obtained from the report of the Commissioners of land revenue, printed in 1812. It is there stated that, taking the tonnage of the navy in 1806 at 776,087 tons, it would require, at 1 load to a ton, 1,164,085 loads to build such a navy; and, supposing the average duration of a ship be fourteen years, the annual quantity of timber required would be 83,149 loads, exclusive of repairs, which may be calculated to take 27,000 loads, making the whole about 110,000 loads.

Now it is estimated that not more than forty oak trees can stand on an acre of ground so as to grow to a full size fit for ships of the line, or to contain each 1 load of timber: and it is known that each seventy-four gun ship consumes, in building, 2000 tons or 3000 loads, so that 2000 oak trees, the full produce of fifty acres, are required to construct one such vessel. But as 110,000 loads are annually wanted, and as an oak tree is at least 100 years in arriving at a fit state to be cut for ship timber, nearly 200,000 acres of land would be required for the growth of oak alone to keep up a successive supply for maintaining a navy of about 800,000 tons, were not timber procured during war from prizes, and other incidental sources. The supplies thus gained were, during the last war, very considerable, and our enemies were by no means unconscious of their extent; for, with their characteristic levity, which is proof against misfortune, they absolutely called the superintendant at Breschai, in the time of Napoleon, Purveyor of arms to the British navy,' as he himself informed my friend, Mr. Bond, soon after the peace; for, added he, no sooner were our ships fitted-out from the port of Venice, than they fell into your hands.

The above calculations are however but partial, as they refer to the royal navy alone; and hence to the account there must be added that in the service of the East India Company, and the 20,000 merchant-vessels of a mean burden of 120 tons, which, according to Moreau's tables, is the average number at any one time employed in the commercial navigation of England and Scotland, besides our vast home demands, for the construction of docks, wharfs, canals, flood-gates, &c. which exceed in amount those of the Royal navy.

(1551.) The value of oak bark is only inferior to that of its wood. From the

tanning principle which in it is so abundant, it is the bark chiefly employed by tanners in the making of leather, one of the most important manufactures of this country, ranking either the third or fourth on the list, and surpassed only by those of cotton, wool, and perhaps of iron, the value of articles annually manufactured from leather being estimated at from 12 to 16,000,000.

Besides the oak-bark afforded by our own plantations large quantities are imported, chiefly from Holland and Belgium, averaging about 40,000 tons per annum.

(1552.) The astringency of oak-bark has recommended its employment medicinally in sanguineous and other fluxes; it has also been used both alone, and combined with other bitters and aromatic drugs, as a febrifuge; and, according to Merat and Lens, it entered largely into the preparation of the factitious cinchonas, which the French physicians were compelled to substitute for Peruvian bark during the war, when the whole European continent was blockaded by the British navy.

The leaves of the oak are astringent, but much less so than the bark; they have bence been occasionally used in the tanning of leather, and also officinally as styptics: the leaves of Q. falcata have on this account been especially recommended as an external application in gangrene.

(1553.) The oak is peculiarly subject to the attacks of insects, which cause the production of many varieties of galls; some particular kind being found on almost every part, such as the roots, branches, buds, leaf-stalks, flower-stalks, and even on either side of the leaves. Of these adventitious productions, once mistaken for the fruit of the tree, the most important is that known in commerce as the gall-nut, and which is brought to this country from the Levant, chiefly from Aleppo. The oak on which the nut-galls are found is a small shrubby species called Q. infectoria, that is common in all parts of Asia Minor, especially in the neighbourhood of Smyrna and Aleppo. The galls, which are the result of the puncture of a small insect named Diplolepis gallæ tinctoriæ, (vide Med. Bot., clii.), are the only valuable produce of the plant, and they form a very important article of commerce. Oak-galls are among the most powerful vegetable astringents known, and hence they form the basis of most styptics, and enter into the composition of many astringent medicines. An infusion of galls is the best antidote for an overdose of ipecacuanha, rendering it almost immediately inert.

Galls contain, besides tannin, mucilage, and extractive matter, a peculiar principle called gallic acid, which strikes a deep black colour with the soluble salts of iron. This property renders them valuable as a dye-stuff; and hence indeed, from their great request by dyers, the oak which bears them has been named Q. infectoria. They also form the basis of modern writing-ink.

(1554.) The once well-known dye called Kermes, now in great measure superseded by the West Indian cochineal, is a species of coccus, an insect that infests the Q. coccifera, as another does the Cactus coccinellifer. This oak,

which is common in the Levant, is valued, like the preceding, only for its adventitious produce; and, before the introduction of cochineal, the Kermes was the base of most of our crimson dyes: it is still used by the Greeks and Turks to dye the scarlet caps so commonly worn in Eastern countries.

(1555.) Quercitron is the bark of the Q. tinctoria; in America it is used to tan leather, but here only to dye yellow: the acorn-cups of the Velani oak, Q.

Egilops, are also imported as a dye-stuff, and are used sometimes, instead of gallnuts, to strike a good black with iron, as well as in the process of tanning.

(1556.) Cork is the bark of Q. Suber. This oak is a native of the northern parts of Africa and the southern ones of Europe. The trees yield octennial or decennial crops, from the age of about fifteen years to that of a hundred and fifty, and are said to be more vigorous, healthy, and long-lived when the cork is periodically removed, than when it is left to accumulate on their trunks. The uses of cork are too well known to require enumeration; but, besides the purposes to which in this country it is commonly applied, in Spain and Portugal layers of it are used to line the rooms, and laid down instead of carpets in the brick-floored chambers.

The European markets are chiefly supplied from the Peninsula, the French cork being inferior to that of Spain and Portugal. About 2500 tons of cork are annually imported into Britain from the two last named states. The soot collected from burnt cork forms Spanish black.

(1557.) Q. virens, or the live oak, is the most valuable for its timber of all the American species; and, besides this, and the foregoing, many others either have been or might be applied to various economical purposes; the above, however, are sufficient illustrations of the importance of the genus.

(1558.) While some of the oaks are dwarfish shrubs, others attain an immense magnitude, and live through uncounted years. Few trees indeed are known to exceed them either in bulk or age, [§ 97.] Of their size some instances have been already given, and others might easily be added; for there are many venerable oaks in this country which, as Gilpin says, 'chronicle on their furrowed trunks ages before the Conquest;' and some, such as the Salcey and the Cowthorpe, that perhaps may antedate the Christian era.

(1559.) The chesnut and the beech, associated by Linneus as species of the same genus, have by modern botanists been distinguished into two, named Castanea and Fagus. It is probable that the onyos of the Greeks was not the Fagus of the Latins, but either the chesnut or Q. Æsculus, as the name has evident reference to the fruit being used as food; and beech-mast would form a far inferior diet to chesnuts. The beech is chiefly valued for its wood, but it is not considered by foresters in general as a timber tree; for it is neither strong nor durable: it is chiefly employed, from the closeness of its grain, for tool-handles and in machinery. Beech-nuts abound in oil, and a patent some years ago was taken out for its extraction, but it was found more profitable to fatten swine upon them than to sell them to the patentee.

(1560.) The chesnut is much more valuable than the beech, both for its timber and its fruit; it is also a more handsome and noble growing tree. Some instances are given in which the chesnut is said to have arrived at a most extraordinary size and age, such as the Castagno de cento cavalli, which, according to Brydone, measured 160, some say 204, feet round the remains of its hollow and dissevered trunk, [§ 103.]

Chesnuts are much less eaten in England than on the continent; there they are not only roasted, but boiled, and also ground into meal, and made into cakes, bread, and puddings.

(1561.) The genera, Corylus, Carpinus, and Ostrya, are of less import

ance than the preceding; the first includes the several species of hazel-nut and filbert-the 'nuces Pontica' of the Romans, so called from their being brought to Italy from Pontus, a name which has been subsequently changed to avellana, from their growing most abundantly in a valley near the town Avellino, in the kingdom of Naples, whence they are exported in large quantities. Swinburne says, in his time, the growers in that district cleared an annual profit of 12,000/. by the sale of nuts alone.

(1562.) Carpinus Betula is much used in the construction of rustic implements of husbandry, especially yokes for cattle, whence its name, hornbeam; its catkins are said to be sometimes fraudulently mixed with hops.

The Ostrya or hop-hornbeam, still more closely resembles the true hop: the wood of the American species (O. virginica) is very hard and heavy, which may account for its being commonly called iron-wood or lever-wood.

(1563.) JUGLANDACEE. The hickory (Carya), and the wall-nut (Juglans), have been separated by De Candolle from the Terebinthaca, a group to which they have several strong affinities, and formed into a type called (Juglandeæ, or rather) JUGLANDACEE. These plants, by their spicate or subamentaceous apetalous staminiferous flowers, inferior one-celled ovarium, exalbuminous embryo, with large wrinkled or sinous cotyledons, evidently shew an affinity to the Corylace; and by the occasional development of four petals in the pistilliferous flowers and the nut becoming drupaceous, declare as strongly that the group is transitional from the monochlamydeous to the dichlamydeous districts: of which a still more beautiful example will be found in two small orders which pass from the Ulmacea onwards.

(1564.) The JUGLANDACEE [§ 1521, c,] are ramose 'arboreous plants, with alternate impari-pinnate undotted leaves destitute of stipulæ.

Their flowers are monœcious, the stamineous ones collected into aments, the pistillines subsolitary, or two or three growing together on short terminal foot-stalks. The stamineous flowers are each attached to a single bracte, the calyx subpedicellate, oblique, irregularly 2-6 partite, and herbaceous. Petals none. Stamina three to thirty-six, hypogynous. Filaments free and very short; anthers erect and two-celled, with a longitudinal dehiscence, and the connectivum continuous with the filament.

The pistilline flowers are destitute of cupules, the ovarium is inferior, the tube of the calyx being adnate with the germen, the limb four-cleft and deciduous. Petals usually absent, occasionally developed, four in number and marcescent. The germen is one-celled, formed of two confluent carpella, and one-ovuled, the ovule being erect. The styles one or two, very short or none. Stigmata cleft, dilated, and either discoid, four-lobed, or fringed.

The fruit is drupaceous, subglobose, or subovate. The mesocarp coriaceous and seceding from the endocarp, which is woody, two-valved, often rugose, onecelled with four incomplete dissepiments, and one-seeded. The seed is erect, inferiorly four-lobed, exalbuminous, and covered with a membranaceous testa and very distinct delicate tegmen. The embryo is large, with two large wrinkled, oily, and fleshy cotyledons, the radicle short and superior, and the plumula with two pinnate leaves.

(1565.) Besides their amentiform inflorescence, apetalous flowers, and exalbuminous seeds, by which they are associated with the QUERCINE, the Ju

glandacea are distinguished from all other groups by their definite erect ovules, wrinkled cotyledons, and unequally pinnated leaves destitute of dots and stipulæ. (1566.) The Juglandacea are much esteemed both for their timber and their fruit. Before the introduction of mahogany and other modern fancy woods, the walnut was much prized, and greatly employed in the construction of ornamental furniture: its chief use now is for gun-stocks; and, during the late war, so much was required for the supply of our troops, that walnut-trees of a size fit for timber fetched a very high price, and surveyors were employed to seek them throughout the country.

The fleshy cotyledons of the nuts abound in oil, which is in some places expressed. It is one of the oils which do not congeal by cold, and which, drying on exposure to air, are valuable in the art of painting. It is also used instead of olive and almond oils in cookery. The mark or nut-bread, as it is called, which is left after the expressure of the oil, is very nutritious, and is used to fatten poultry and other domestic animals. It has been stated, on the authority of Tournefort, that walnut oil taken in large quantities produces intoxication; but this statement requires confirmation.

Walnut oil is peculiarly prone to become rancid, and then it is indigestible, whether in its separate form or in the nut. Otherwise, walnuts are not so unwholesome as they are generally esteemed.

The sap of the walnut tree, if withdrawn during the spring, abounds in saccharine matter, which on evaporation affords sugar equal to that from the beet-root, and it is said will crystallize as well as that from the cane; when fermented, it affords an intoxicating liquor or walnut wine.

(1567.) An opinion has long prevailed that the exhalations of the common walnut tree are deleterious, producing stupor, and even fever, in those who sit under its shade. These accounts are doubtless exaggerated, but it is well known that the strong odour of the leaves will bring on headach in many persons.

(1568.) The bark, as well as the leaves of the several species, is extremely bitter and astringent; it has been recommended as a febrifuge, tonic, and stomachic, and also as an anthelmintic. The inner bark of the root of Juglans cinerea, L. (J. cathartica, Mich.), is purgative in doses of gr. x.—Əi. and it is said to be peculiarly mild in its operation. The odour of this species is the most offensive of the whole, and hence it has been administered in extract as an antispasmodic. The leaves contain so much acrid matter, that when powdered they are used in the United States as a substitute for cantharides. This species yields much oil, and hence is commonly known as the "butter-nut or oil-nut." A kind of bread is made from the kernels of J. nigra, and in their natural state the nuts are a favorite food both with brute animals and men.

(1569.) The different species of hickory (Carya), yield nuts less grateful than the true walnuts, but still wholesome and nutritious. The best are those of the C. olivæformis and sulcata; the first-named is the Pekan nut, and its flavour is delicious. The bark of C. alba is acrid, and used as a caustic; its wood is of a light colour, and valuable for its elasticity and toughness.

ULMINE.

(1570.) The Elms and their allies, sometimes associated with the Quercine, and sometimes with the Urticina, to both of which