PATTERSON v. M'CAUSLAND.—3 BLAND. 77

*In this case the block here produced, has been cut out
so deep from the trunk of this black oak, as to include, 93
with the bark and all the newly formed layers of wood, eighteen
others which had been formed when the chop mark was made.
Judging from the appearance of the block, and the segment of
the circle formed by its outside, I should suppose that the tree was
about one foot in diameter, and was at present in a youthful and
vigorous state of vegetation. The block distinctly exhibits the
new wood as being in every way perfectly united over the whole of
the chop mark. Immediately over the chop mark there is much
horny wood in which no concentrical layers are visible; but on one
side of the chop mark, and where the concentrical layers appear
to be a perfectly natural continuation of those into which the chop
mark had been made, there can be counted no more than
twelve additional concentrical layers. These new layers differ
very much in thickness one from another, and altogether measure
as much in diameter as the eighteen which had been previously
formed. The whole or a part of the epidermis, or outside bark
though which the chop mark was made, apparently still remains
with a perfectly formed new bark so closed over it as to leave
nothing more than a scar or cicatrice where the chop mark had
been made.

The witnesses testify, that this chop mark was shewn as having
been made in the year 1791; now thirty-nine years ago, in accord-
ance with which, if the hypothesis that each concentrical layer de-
notes the lapse of a year, be correct, there should have been found
that number of concentrical layers; but there are no more than
twelve; and consequently, the testimony of the witnesses, or the
evidence derived from this hypothesis must be rejected. There is
nothing whatever, in addition to this hypothesis, to impeach the
credibility of the witnesses.

*I have nowhere met with the mention of any one single
instance, in which the number of the concentrical layers, 94
which could be distinctly counted, in the transverse section of the
trunk of any forest tree, of a foot or more in diameter, had been
found exactly to correspond with the years of its age, as otherwise
well and positively known and ascertained. Yet it is most mani-
fest, that until the regular, uniform, and exact coincidence between

mechanism concealed beneath a skin inert and opaque—we are compelled to
trust for all our notions of the manner in which a plant performs its vital
functions; to inductions from data about which, in many cases, there must
always, from the nature of things, be some kind of uncertainty. In such
circumstances, can we wonder that great diversity of opinion has existed
among physiologists, respecting many of the phenomena of vegetable life;
or that multitudes of erroneous theories have obtained belief almost without
question.''—Essay on Vegetable Physiology, by Armstrong, Prof., &c., Wash-
ington College, Virginia, chap. 15; The Farmers' Register, by Ruffin, vol. 7, No. 7.