oceed from this alphabet, and to stop at various points, or
lose themselves in the texture, of the represented wood. And, knowing now
something of the matter beforehand, guessing a little more, and gleaning
the rest with my finest glass, I achieve the elucidation of the figure, to
the following extent, explicable without letters at all, by my more simple
drawing, Figure 25.

16. (1) The inner circle full of little cells, diminishing in size towards
the outside, represents the pith, 'very large at this period of the
growth'--(the first year, we are told in next page,) and 'very large'--he
means in proportion to the rest of the branch. _How_ large he does not say,
in his text, but states, in his note, that the figure is magnified 26
diameters. I have drawn mine by the more convenient multiplier of 30, and
given the real size at B, _according to Balfour_:--but without believing
him to be right. I never saw a maple stem of the first year so small.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.]

(2) The black band with white dots round the marrow, represents the
marrow-sheath.

(3) From the marrow-sheath run the marrow-rays 'dividing the vascular
circle into numerous compact segments.' A 'ray' cannot divide anything into
a segment. Only a partition, or a knife, can do that. But we shall find
presently that marrow _rays_ ought to be called marrow-_plates_, and are
really mural, forming more or less continuous partitions.

(4) The compact segments 'consist of woody vessels and of porous vessels.'
This is the first we have heard of woody _vessels_! He means the '_fibres_
ligneux' of Figuier; and represents them in each compartment, as at C (Fig.
25). without telling us why he draws the woody vessels as radiating. They
appear to radiate, indeed, when wood is sawn across, but they are really
upright.

(5) A moist layer of greenish cellular tissue called the cambium
layer--black in Figure 25--and he draws it in flat arches, without saying
why.

(6), (7), (8) Three layers of bark (called in his note Endophloeum;
Mesophloeum, and Epiphloeum!) with 'laticiferous vessels.' [43]

(9) Epidermis. The three layers of bark being separated by single lines, I
indicate the epidermis by a double one, with a rough fringe outside, and
thus we have the parts of the section clearly visible and distinct for
discussion, so far as this first figure goes,--without wanting one letter
of all his three and twenty!

17. But on the next page, this ingenious author gi