WOOD, ANTHONY, an eminent biographer and antiquarian, was the son of Thomas Wood, bachelor of arts and of the civil law, and was born at Oxford in 1632. He studied at Merton college, and in 1655 took the degree of master of arts. He wrote, 1. The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford; which was afterwards translated into Latin by Mr Wase and Mr Peers, under the title of Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis, 2 vols folio. 2. Athena Oxoniensis; or an exact Account of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their education in the University of Oxford, from the Year 1500 to 1600, 2 vols folio; which was greatly enlarged in a second edition published in 1721 by Bishop Tanner. Upon the first publication of this work the author was attacked by the university, in defence of Edward earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England, and chancellor of the university, and was likewise animadverted upon by Bishop Burnet; upon which he published a Vindication of the Historiographer of the University of Oxford. He died at Oxford in 1695.
Wood. WOOD, a substance whereof the trunks and branches of trees consist. It is composed of a number of concentric circles or zones, one of which is formed every year; consequently their number corresponds to the age of the tree. These zones vary in thickness according to the degree of vegetation that took place the year of their formation. They are also of different degrees of thickness in different parts, that part of the tree which is most exposed to the sun and best sheltered growing fastest; hence in this country that part of the zone which looked towards the south while the tree was growing is generally thickest. The innermost circle or zone is the one which was first formed, the outermost was formed the year before the tree was cut down. These zones are at first very soft and tender, and harden by degrees as the tree becomes older: this is the reason that the middle of a tree is so often much better wood than the outside of it.
The proper ligneous part of the wood consists of longitudinal fibres, disposed in fasciculi, and possessed of considerable hardness. It is this longitudinal direction of the fibres that renders it so much easier to cleave wood lengthwise, than across the tree, or in any other direction. See PLANT and VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.
For an account of the ingredients which enter into the composition of wood, see CHEMISTRY Index.
For the Method of Staining or Dyeing Wood, see TURNING.
For more complete information concerning wood, see also TREE, and STRENGTH of Materials.
Fossil Wood. Fossil wood, or whole trees, or parts of them, are very frequently found buried in the earth, and that in different strata; sometimes in stone, but more usually in earth; and sometimes in small pieces loose among the gravel. These, according to the time they have lain in the earth, or the matter they have lain among, are found differently altered from their original state; some of them having suffered very little change; and others being so highly impregnated with crystalline, sparry, pyritical, or other extraneous matter, as to appear mere masses of stone, or lumps of the common matter of the pyrites, &c. of the dimensions, and, more or less, of the internal figure, of the vegetable bodies into the pores of which they have made their way.
The fossil woods have been arranged by Dr Hill into three kinds: 1. The less altered; 2. The pyritical; and, 3. The petrified.
Of the trees, or parts of them, less altered from their original state, the greatest store is found in digging to small depths in bogs, and among what is called peat or turf earth, a substance used in many parts of the kingdom for fuel. In digging among this, usually very near the surface, immense quantities of vegetable matter of various kinds are found buried; in some places there are whole trees scarce altered, except in colour; the oaks in particular being usually turned to a jetty black; the pines and firs, which are also very frequent, are less altered, and are as inflammable as ever, and often contain between the bark and wood a black resin. Large parts of trees have also been not unfrequently met with unaltered in beds of another kind, and at much greater depths, as in strata of clay and loam, among gravel, and sometimes even in solid stone.
Besides these harder parts of trees, there are frequently
found also in the peat earth vast quantities of the leaves and fruit and catkins of the hazel and similar trees; these are usually mixed with fedge and roots of grass, and are scarce at all altered from their usual texture. The most common of these are hazel nuts; but there are frequently found also the twigs and leaves of the white poplar; and a little deeper usually there lies a cracked and shattered wood, the crevices of which are full of a bituminous black matter: and among this the stones of plums and other stone-fruits are sometimes found, but more rarely.
In this state the fruits and larger parts of trees are usually found: what we find of them more altered, are sometimes large and long, sometimes smaller and shorter branches of trees; sometimes small fragments of branches, and more frequently small shapeless pieces of wood. The larger and longer branches are usually found bedded in the strata of stone, and are more or less altered into the nature of the stratum they lie in. The shorter and smaller branches are found in vast variety in the strata of blue-clay used for making tiles in the neighbourhood of London. These are prodigiously plentiful in all the clay-pits of this kind, and usually carry the whole external resemblance of what they once were, but nothing of the inner structure; their pores being wholly filled, and undistinguishably closed, by the matter of the common pyrites, so as to appear mere simple masses of that matter. These fall to pieces on being long exposed to moisture; and are so impregnated with vitriol that they are what is principally used for making the green vitriol or copperas at Deptford and other places.
The irregular masses or fragments of petrified wood are principally of oak, and are most usually found among gravel; though sometimes in other strata. These are variously altered by the insinuation of crystalline and stony particles; and make a very beautiful figure when cut and polished, as they usually keep the regular grain of the wood, and show exactly the several circles which mark the different years growth. These, according to the different matter which has filled their pores, assume various colours, and the appearance of the various fossils that have impregnated them; some are perfectly white, and but moderately hard; others of a brownish black, or perfectly black, and much harder; others of a reddish black, others yellowish, and others grayish, and some of a ferruginous colour. They are of different weights also and hardnesses, according to the nature and quantity of the stony particles they contain: of these some pieces have been found with every pore filled with pure pellucid crystal; and others in large masses, part of which is wholly petrified and seems mere stone, while the rest is crumbly and is unaltered wood. That this alteration is made in wood, even at this time, is also abundantly proved by the instances of wood being put into the hollows of mines, as props and supports to the roofs, which is found after a number of years as truly petrified as that which is dug up from the natural strata of the earth. In the pieces of petrified wood found in Germany, there are frequently veins of spar or of pure crystal, sometimes of earthy substances, and often of the matter of the common pebbles: these fragments of wood sometimes have the appearance of parts of the branches of trees in their natural state, but more frequently they resemble pieces of broken boards; these are usually capable of a high and elegant polish.
Many substances, it is certain, have been preserved in the cabinets of collectors, under the title of petrified wood, which have very little right to that name. But where the whole outer figure of the wood, the exact lineaments of the bark, or the fibrous and filular texture of the fibre, and the vestiges of the utriculi and tracheæ or air-vessels, are yet remaining, and the several circles yet visible which denoted the several years growth of the tree, none can deny these substances to be real fossil wood. See PETRIFICATION.
Dr Parry of Bath has recently investigated the causes of the decay of wood, and the means of preventing it. For this purpose he recommends the application of a preparation of the resinous kind, mixed with a certain portion of bees-wax. The proportion of the ingredients and the mode of mixing them are as follows: Take 12 ounces of rosin and 8 ounces of roll brimstone, each coarsely powdered, and 3 gallons of train oil; heat them slowly, gradually adding 4 ounces of bees-wax, cut into small bits. Frequently stir the liquor, which, as soon as the solid ingredients are dissolved, will be fit for use. It is recommended to dress every part of the wood-work with this composition twice over before the parts are put together, and once afterwards; and a higher state of preservation is promised from its use than has yet been attained. It should be observed, that in preparing this varnish, it is advisable, in order to prevent accidents, to use an earthen vessel, and to make the fire in the open air.