Volume 2

The select works, containing his microscopical discoveries / translated from the Dutch and Latin editions by Samuel Hoole.

  • Leeuwenhoek, Antoni van, 1632-1723.
Date:
1798-1807
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The select works, containing his microscopical discoveries / translated from the Dutch and Latin editions by Samuel Hoole. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    15/384 (page 7)
    Alh-timber, growing in warm climates, to be, beyond comparifon, preferable to fuch as is produced in cold regions.” The Tranfator in resuming this part of the fubje&t, obferved a paffage in the BJfay on the Oak, luhich had fomehow efcaped him ; he therefore takes leave to introduce it here. As many perfons cannot conceive how calks made of Oak can con- tain liquors, when they conlider that the wood is compofed of no- thing but numbers of fmall tubes united, I cannot refrain from giving an explanation of the manner in which Oak is prepared, and worked up in the making of tubs or calks, which is as follows : The tree is Iplit or cleft lengthwile into two, four, or lix pieces in pro- portion to its lize, but To that the fplitting or cleaving may extend from the circumference to the centre of the tree; though when a tree is cleft in two, as I have feen performed in much of the Riga timber, pieces are again cleft from the flat fldes of each half, making a fort of four fquare Haves ; likewife, when large trees have been thus cleft down the middle, planks or Haves are made from them, by cleaving pieces from that Hde which was the middle of the tree ; and thefe pieces will be four fquare and not triangular; by all thefe methods of fplitting or cleaving the wood, the perpendicular, and alfo the horizontal veflels will be divided lengthwife, or accord- ing to the fame direction in which they were placed in the tree, and they will all lie lengthwife in the plank or Have, the perpendicular veflels from end to end, and the horizontal ones frdm tide to Hde, by which means the liquor in a calk or vat, made of timber thus prepared, muft prefs againfl the fldes of the veflels or tubes of the wood ; and this is the reafon why calks made of Oak, though it is formed entirely of tubes, do yet retain the liquor;—toilluflrate this by an example: