OAK, ECONOMICAL USES OF. The oak subserves a greater num ber of useful purposes than almost any other kind of forest tree. All things considered, British oak is more durable than any other timber largely grown in Europe ; and hence its enormous employment in the arts. The wood is hard, tough, tolerably flexible, strong without being too heavy, not easy to splinter, and not readily penetrated by water. An experiment once showed that a weight of 10,000 lbs. was required to break an oaken beam 11 feet long by 5 inches square. With twisted grain the wood is admirably suited for posts for houses, mills, engines, and large machines. It bears alternations of wet and dry better than most other woods ; oak piles have been known to endure for many centuries.. It is excellent for shingles, pales, laths, and casks. The small slow-growing variety is much employed for the spokes of wheels. The young tree yields slender rods, well suited for hoops, walking sticks, and the handles of carters' whips. Tho great durability of Britiala oak is illustrated by numerous well-known exempla. • such as some of the doers, Edward the shrine, and the chair, at NVestminster Abbey ; fragments of King John's pahice at 1:It1am ; the Plantagenet stalls of Gloucester Cathedral ; the piles of the old Savoy palace; the piles beneath the buttresses and starlings of Old London bridge ; the wooden church near Ungar ; and Cowey stakes near Oatlands,—which were applied to their respective uses at periods varying from five to nineteen hundred years ago. More important, however, than any of these uses of British oak. is its employment in &hip-building, with which it is associated In song and metaphor as well as to fact. An oaken vessel 'or boat, perfectly sound, and nearly as hard as Iron, was found a few years ago in the bed of the river Bother, in Kent, where it is supposed to have lain since the time of Alfred the Great. For more than a thomand years British ships lave been mainly built of British oek. During the great wars of 1793 to 1815,
the consumption was enormous. In 1306 it was calculated that the ships of the navy contained nearly 1,200.000 loads of timber ; and that 100.000 loads a year would be required to keep up the strength, by renewals and repairs. It requires 50 acre' of h.ar1, and about 100 years in time, to grow oak timber sufficient for one 74-gun ship ; a fact that will Illustrate the value of old forests to our chip-yards. The royal forests of England either do not contain oak trees enough for national use, or they are too badly managed to yield the supply when wanted. As a consequence, large purchases are made nearly every year. A parliamentary return, called for a few yeast ago, showed that in eleven years (1840 to 1850 inclusive) the average purchase of British oak for the royal dockyards was nearly 9000 loads, varying from 3000 to 20,000 in a year. There are other varieties of oak, besidea the British, which yield timber useful for many purposes in the arts. Turkey oak is not so strong and durable as British, but as its grain is more beau tiful, and takes a better polish, it is available for ornamental purposes. The American white oak is much used for ship-building and house building, for cask staves, for milk pails, axe handles, fie. ; while the wood of the young trees, being very elastic, and susceptible of easy is used for many of the purposes of willow, bamboo, or whalebone, in the making of baskets, brooms, chair seats, riddles, and carters whips. The live oak, or quercus ripens, is very largely used in the United States for shipbuilding; it is strong and durable, though in some degree unfavourable on account of its great weight ; it is found, also, to be far better than the white oak for the naves and folloes of heavy wheels, and the screws and cogs of mill-whecla. There are other varieties of American oak, used for a great number of purposes, hut none equal to British oak for strong and durable timber.