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[Page 3]
[experi]ment, I have reduced 1000 Grains of each kind of Wood to fine Fragments in order to prove the quantity of soluble matter each contained, & on each portion of 1000 Grains twelve ounces of Boiling water were poured & suffered to remain 20 Hours. The Water was then reduced to 60 Degrees of Temperature & the specific Gravity of that portion in which the summer-felled wood had been steeped was found (by the Hydrometer) to have increased from 1000 to 1001. The winter-felled wood gave a deeper Tinge to the Water & increased it's specific Gravity from 1000 to 1002. We may, I think, safely infer from the preceding Results that winter-felled wood contains much matter which is by some means lost in the Spring, (provided that I have not made some most egregious blunders in making the Experiments); but we have no grounds which can enable us to decide whether this matter becomes more soluble in the Spring, because the relative proportions of this matter which each kind of wood contained are not proved: for if all the leaves & fronds had been taken off the summer-felled boles at the season when they were cut & they had been suffered to stand, they would soon have generated new Buds & leaves, & these must, I conceive, like their predecessors have derived this substance from matter previously prepared within the wood, & not from the newly imbibed sap alone, & therefore it is very possible that the water may have extracted the soluble matter from each kind in each proportion to the quantity each contained. I am, however, much inclined to suspect that