I am indebted to Mr William Eobertson for calling my attention to the interesting phenomena which form the subject of this communication. Some months ago he showed me at his works, Haymarket, the trunk of a large oak which had been obtained from beds of sand and gravel in his property at Olive Bank, Musselburgh. The wood was very dark in colour, and in a fine state of preservation. It was, in fact, in process of being sawn into planks, from which a number of useful and ornamental articles have since been made. The trunk was perfectly straight, showing no appearance of branches, and when first uncovered measured 31 feet in length, having a diameter of 2 feet at the butt end close to the roots, from which it tapered upwards very gradually. The portion seen by me iu Mr Robertson's premises had been more or less scraped by his workmen, and the bark was almost entirely wanting; but I was informed that very little bark appeared when the tree was disinterred. The roots were somewhat rounded, and looked as if they had been rubbed and abraded. Shortly afterwards I visited the sand-pit, and saw the trunk of another large oak in situ.