OBSTACLES, UNEXPECTED
Dr. Cecil Carus-Wilson described before the Linnean Society in London recently some singular observations concerning the inclusion of stones in the roots and stems of trees.
Oaks growing in a gravel pit in Kent had so many stones imbedded in their roots that they resisted attempts to saw them. Some of the roots are described as consisting of “a conglomerate formed of flints inclosed in a woody matrix.” In one specimen 67 flints were found, the largest weighing several pounds. In Norton churchyard, near Faversham, are three old yew-trees, in two of which flints and fragments of tiles have been seen at a height of seven feet above the ground. In Molash churchyard are other yew-trees which have flints imbedded in their trunks as much as eight feet above the ground. The tissues of the wood appear to have grown round the stones, which have been carried upward with the growth of the trees.
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Obstinacy—See [Suggestion].
Obstruction—See [Little Things].
Occasion, Equal to the—See [Rank, Obsequiousness to].
OCCUPATION AND HEALTH
There are some occupations that ought to be salvatory to those that engage in them, as that of the physician or the minister. Yet all occupations may so serve, if the man who works in them thus determines. As an instance of service salvatory to the worker, an English writer refers to the immunity from disease of those who work in the oil-fields:
There is no difficulty in accounting for this. Carbolic acid, one of the most powerful of our disinfectants, is abundantly produced in the oilworks, and this is carried by the clothes of the men, and with the fumes of the oil into the dwellings of the workmen and through all the atmosphere of the neighborhood, and has thereby counteracted some of the most deadly agencies of organic poisons. Besides this, the paraffin oil itself is a good disinfectant.