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 Wale and Mr Peers, under the title of Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis, 2 vols folio. 2. Athenae Oxonienses; 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.

a substance whereof the trunks and branches of trees consists. 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, pyritic, 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 Hjill into three kinds: 1. The lefs altered; 2. The pyritical; and, 3. The petrified.

Of the trees, or parts of them, lefs 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 scarcely 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 lefs 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 seige and roots of grass, and are lefs altered 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 lefs 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 clofed, 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 infiltration of crystalline and flinty 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 hardneffes, according to the nature and quantity of the flinty 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 preferred 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 fissural texture of the strife, and the vestiges of the utriculi and tracheae 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 woodwork 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.

Wood (Cylera), in Ancient Geography, a multitude of trees extended over a large continued tract of land, and propagated without culture. The generality of woods only consist of trees of one kind.—The ancient Saxons had such a veneration for woods, that they made them sanctuaries.—It is ordained, that none shall destroy any wood, by turning it into tillage or pasture, &c. where there are two acres or more in quantity, on pain of forfeiting 40s. an acre, by 35 Henry VIII. c. 17. All woods that are felled at 14 years growth, are to be preserved from destruction for eight years; and no cattle put into the ground till five years after the felling thereof, &c. 13 Eliz. c. 25. The burning of woods or underwood is declared to be felony; also those persons that maliciously cut or spoil timber-trees, or any fruit-trees, &c. shall be sent to the house of correction, there to be kept three months, and whipt once a month.

Wood, Engraving on, is commonly executed on box; and in many cases, engravings of this kind are used with advantage instead of copperplates. The art of cutting or engraving on wood is of very high antiquity; for Chinese printing is a specimen of it. Even in Europe, if credit be due to Papillon, this art was practised at a very remote period; for he mentions eight engravings on wood, entitled, "A representation of the warlike actions of the great and magnanimous Macedonian king, the bold and valiant Alexander; dedicated, presented, and humbly offered, to the most holy father, Pope Honorius IV. by us Alexander Alberic Cunio Chevalier, and Isabella Cunio, &c." This anecdote, if true, carries the art of cutting in wood back to 1284 or 1285; for Honorius occupied the papal throne only during these two years. But this is not the remotest period to which some have carried the art in Europe; for the use of seals or signets being of very high antiquity, they imagine that the invention of wood-cuts must be coeval with them. The supposition is certainly plausible, but it is not supported by proof. The earliest impression of a wooden-cut, of which there is any certain account, is that of St Christopher carrying an infant Jesus through the sea, in which a hermit is seen holding up a lantern to shew him the way; and a peasant, with a sack on his back, climbing a hill, is exhibited in the background. The date of this impression is 1423. In the year 1430 was printed at Haerlem, "The history of St John the evangelist and his revelation, represented in 48 figures in wood, by Lowrent Janfon Cofter;" and, in 1438, Jorg Schappf of Augsburg cut in wood the history of the Apocalypse, and what was called The poor man's bible.

A folio chronicle, published 1493 by Schedel, was adorned with a great number of wooden-cuts by William Pleydenwurff and Michael Wolgemut, whose engravings were greatly superior to any thing of the kind which had appeared before them. The latter was the preceptor of Albert Durer, whose admirable performances in this department of art are justly held in the highest esteem even at the present day.

About this period it became the practice of almost all the German engravers on copper to engrave likewise on wood; and many of their wood cuts surpass in beauty the impressions of their copperplates. Such are the wood-cuts of Albert Aldorfer, Hithel Pen, Virgil Soles, Lucas Van Cranach, and Lucas Van Leyden, the friend and imitator of Albert Durer, with several others.

The Germans carried this art to a great degree of perfection. Hans or John Holbein, who flourished in 1500, engraved the Dance of Death, in a series of wooden-cuts, which, for the freedom and delicacy of execution, have scarcely been equalled, and never surpassed. Italy, France, and Holland, have produced capital artists of this kind. Joan Tornasium printed a bible at Leyden, in 1554, with wooden-cuts of excellent workmanship. Christopher Jegher of Antwerp, from his eminence in the art, was employed by Rubens to work under his inspection, and he executed several pieces which are held in much estimation; they are particularly distinguished for boldness and spirit.

The next attempt at improvement in this art was by Hugo da Carpi, to whom is attributed the invention of the chiaro scuro. Carpi was an Italian, and of the 16th century; but the Germans claim the invention also, and produce in evidence several engravings by Mair, a disciple of Martin Schoen, of date 1499. His mode of performing this was very simple. He first engraved the subject upon copper, and finished it as much as the artists of his time usually did. He then prepared a block of wood, upon which he cut out the extreme lights, and then impressed it upon the print; by which means a faint tint was added to all the rest of the piece, excepting only in those parts where the lights were meant to predominate, which appear on the specimens extant to be coloured with white paint. The drawings for this species of engraving were made on tinted paper with a pen, and the lights were drawn upon the paper with white paint.

But there is a material difference between the chiaro scuro of the old German masters and that of the Italians. Mair and Cranach engraved the outlines and deep deep shadows upon copper. The impression taken in this state was tinted over by means of a single block of wood, with those parts hollowed out which were designed to be left white upon the print. On the contrary, the mode of engraving by Hugo da Carpi was, to cut the outline on one block of wood, the dark shadows upon a second, and the light shadows, or half-tint, upon a third. The first being impressed upon the paper, the outlines only appeared; this block being taken away, the second was put in its place, and being also impressed on the paper, the dark shadows were added to the outlines; and the third block being put in the same place upon the removal of the second, and also impressed upon the paper, made the dim tints, when the print was completed. In some instances, the number of blocks was increased, but the operation was still the same, the print receiving an impression from every block.

In 1698, John Baptist Michel Papillon practised engraving on wood with much success, particularly in ornamental foliage and flowers, shells, &c. In the opinion, however, of some of the most eminent artists, his performances are stiff and cramped. From that period the art of engraving on wood gradually degenerated, and may be said to have been wholly lost, when it was lately re-invented by Mr Bewick of Newcastle. This eminent artist was apprentice to Mr Biebly, a respectable engraver on metal. Mr Biebly, who was accustomed to employ his apprentices in engraving on wood, was much gratified with the performance of Thomas Bewick, and therefore advised him to prosecute engraving in that line. The advice was followed; and young Bewick inventing tools, even making them with his own hands, and sawing the wood on which he was to work into the requisite thickness, proceeded to improve upon his own discoveries, without assistance or instruction of any kind. When his apprenticeship expired, he went to London, where the obscure wood-engravers of the time wished to avail themselves of his abilities, while they were determined to give him no insight into their art. During his apprenticeship, he received from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. a premium of considerable value for the best engraving in wood. The cut which obtained the premium was one of a series for an edition of Gay's Fables. Having remained some years in London, he returned to Newcastle, and entered into partnership with his old master; and established his reputation as an artist by the publication of his admirable History of Quadrupeds. This was followed by his History of Birds, in 2 vols. The greater part of the volume on Quadrupeds, and the whole of the first volume of the work on Birds, was composed by Mr Biebly.

John Bewick, brother to Thomas, learned the art of him, and practised it for several years in London with great applause. His abilities, however, though respectable, were not, by the best judges, deemed so brilliant as his brother's; and owing to bad health, and the nature of his connection with the bookellers and others, he seems not to have advanced the art beyond the stage at which he received it. He died, some years ago, at Newcastle.

Mr Nelbit, who executed the admirable cuts from designs by Thornton, for an edition of Hudibras, as well as the cuts for editions of Shakespeare and Thomson's Seasons, and Mr Anderdon, whose beautiful cuts adorn the poem entitled Grove Hill, have been the most successful of Thomas Bewick's pupils, who have appeared before the public as artists. It appears, that the method practised by the ancient engravers on wood, whose works are still admired, must have been different from that of Bewick and his pupils. What that method was seems to be altogether unknown. Papillon, who writes the best history extant of the art, gives indeed in what manner the old engravers proceeded so as to give to their works the spirit and freedom for which they are famed; but that his guesses are erroneous seems evident from the stiffness of his own works. The principal characteristic in the mechanical department of the productions of the ancient masters is the crossing of the black lines, which Papillon has attempted with the greatest awkwardness, though it seems to have been accomplished by them with so much ease, that they introduced it at random, even where it could add nothing to the beauty of the piece. In Bewick's method of working, this cross hatching is so difficult and unnatural, that it may be considered as impracticable. Mr Nelbit has indeed introduced something of it into two or three of his pieces; but so great was the labour, and so little the advantage of this improvement, if such it can be called, that probably it will not be attempted again.

The engravers of Bewick's school work on the end of the wood, which is cut across the trunk of the tree, in pieces of the proper thickness. As wood-cuts are generally employed in the printer's press amidst a form of types, this thickness must be regulated by the height of the types with which they are to be used. The tools employed are nearly the same with those used in copperplate engraving, being only a little more deep, or lozenge, as engravers call it. They must have points of various degrees of fineness for the different purposes to which they are applied, some of them being so much rounded off at the bottom as to approach to the nature of a goodge, whilst others are in fact little chisels of various sizes. These chisels and goodges, to which every artist gives the shape which he deems most convenient, are held in the hand in a manner somewhat different from the tool of the engraver on copper, it being necessary to have the power of lifting the chips upwards with ease. To attempt a description of this in writing would be in vain; but it is easily acquired, we are told, by practice.

The pupils of the school of Bewick consider it as quite improper to speak of his invention as a revival of the ancient art. Some old prints, it is true, have the appearance of being executed in the same way with his; but others have certainly been done by a method very different. It is therefore not fair to appreciate the present art by what has been done, but by what may be done; and that remains yet to be shewn. The art is in its infancy; and those who are disposed to compare it with the art of engraving on copper, ought to look back to the period when copperplate engraving was of as recent invention as Bewick's method of engraving on wood. Marc Antonio, who engraved under the direction of the great painter Raphael, thought it no mean proof of his proficiency in his art, that he was able to imitate on copperplates the wood-cuts of Albert Durer; and Papillon is highly indignant that there should have been persons so very blind as to mistake the copies for the originals. If copper has its ad- vantages over wood in point of delicacy and minuteness, wood has, in its turn, advantages not inferior in regard to strength and richness. Those prints which were executed under the auspices of Titian and Rubens, will always remain a monument of the spirit and vigour natural to wood-engraving; and if there be not found in them all the attention to chiaro scuro, which the present age demands, it must not be attributed either to defect in the art, or to want of abilities in the artists, but to the taste of the times when chiaro scuro was little understood. It remains for some enterprising artist to shew that the vigour of the ancient art may be attained by the present one, and at the same time to add to that vigour those gradations of shade which are so much admired in good copperplates. As there seems to be a more perfect, or at least a more pleasant black produced by wood than by copperplate printing, and certainly a more perfect white (Λ), who will say that any intermediate shade whatever may not be produced by wood-cuts? To attempt this on a small scale would indeed be vain, because the slightest variation, produced by a little more or less ink, or a harder pressure in printing, bears such a proportion to a very short line, as must necessarily render the attempt abortive.

Wood-engraving, therefore, must always appear to disadvantage while it is confined to small subjects, and will never reach its station as a fine art, till those who are engaged in its cultivation improve upon the discoveries of one another, and apply to subjects to which it is properly adapted. As an economical art for illustrating mechanics, various branches of natural history, and other subjects of science, it is too little employed even in its present state.

The works of Bewick and his pupils, which have hitherto been published, are not numerous. Besides his quadrupeds and birds, the Hudibras, and the cuts for some editions of Shakespear and Thomson's Seafons, by Nefhit, and the Grove Hill by Anderson, already noticed, there are also some others of less note.—Goldsmith's Traveller and Deserted Village with elegant plates, are all executed by Thomas Bewick, except one or two which were executed by John; Somerville's Chace by the same artists, executed in a style of elegance which perhaps has never been surpassed; a View of St Nicholas's Church, Newcastle, 15 inches long, by Mr Nefhit, who received for it a silver medal from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts.

Rotten, Illumination of. This is a subject which has often been discussed by naturalists. Spallanzani maintained, that there is a perfect analogy between the illumination of rotten wood, and artificial phosphorus; and he imagines, that in the putrid fermentation, the hydrogen and the carbone of the wood come more easily in contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, by which combination a flow combustion, and the illumination of the wood, is produced; and he thinks that this process cannot proceed in the irrespirable kinds of gases. Rotten wood also, in which the necessary quantity of hydrogen and carbone is not at the same time disengaged, does not obtain the property of illuminating. Mr Corradi, however, objects to this theory, that the flow combustion does not take place according to the above theory, as the wood, at the time when it begins to illuminate, is mostly deprived of its resinous particles, and consequently contains but very little hydrogen and carbone; and it appears to him more probable, that the more it loses of combustible matter, the more it obtains the property of illuminating. There is, he thinks, a very great difference between this natural and the artificial phosphorus. Mr Humboldt concludes, from his experiments, that the illumination of rotten wood takes place only when it gets into contact with oxygen; and when it has lost the property of emitting light in irrespirable gases, it recovers it again by exposing it to oxygen gas. Dr Gartner, however, is of opinion, that, according to his experiments, a certain degree of humidity is always requisite, and he thinks that oxygen gas is not quite necessary though the illumination be increased by it. This phenomenon, however, being so very different from all known processes of combustion, where light is disengaged, Dr Gartner asks, whether it be not more agreeing with the animal process of respiration, than with a true combustion, or whether the illumination of the wood be produced by phosphorus and carbone in a proportion hitherto unknown. Dr Gartner is, on the whole, inclined to think, that it is at present impossible to give a satisfactory explanation of all the phenomena that occur in this process. Beckmann has made numerous experiments on the illumination of rotten wood, in different gases and fluids, in order to throw some light on the ideas of the above naturalists. The results of these experiments differ in some points from what the experiments of those gentlemen have shewn, which, however, Beckmann ascribes to the nature of rotten wood, as a substance that is not always of the same kind, and has not always an equal degree of putrefaction and humidity. It seems also to differ materially from the artificial phosphorus in the following particulars. 1. It shines in oxygen gas at a very low temperature. 2. It emits light in all irrespirable gases, at least for a short time. 3. In muriatic acid gas its light is suddenly extinguished. 4. It shines in a less degree in air rarefied by the air-pump. 5. According to Mr Corradi, it even shines in the torricellian vacuum. 6. Its illumination is extinguished in oxygen gas, as well as in other kinds of gases, when they are heated. 7. By its illumination in oxygen gas, carbonic acid gas is produced. 8. One may suffer the rotten wood to be extinguished several times, one after another, in irrespirable gases, without depriving them of the property of making new pieces of rotten wood shine again. 9. Humidity greatly promotes the illumination, and even seems to be necessary in producing it. 10. The rotten wood continues to shine under water, oil, and other fluids, and in some of them its light is even increased. All this seems to shew, that the extinction of rotten wood, in different media, does not immediately depend on a want of oxygen, but rather on a particular change, to which the wood itself has been exposed.