Be this as it may, the fact is, we have found defects of this kind in all soils, and in all expositions, but most frequently in wet ground and in northern and western expositions; the latter may perhaps proceed in cases when the cold is more intense, in such expositions; and in the other, from the trees which are in marshy grounds, having the tissue of their ligneous fibres weaker, and because their sap is more abundant and aqueous than in dry land; which may be the cause that the effect of the rarefaction of liquors by the pores is more perceptible, and more in a state of diminishing the ligneous fibres, as they bring less resistance thereto. This reasoning seems to be confirmed by another observation; namely, that resinous trees, as the fir, are seldom injured by the sharp frosts of winter, evidently from their sap being more resinous: for we know that oils do not perfectly freeze, and that instead of augmenting in volume, like water, in frosty weather, they diminish when they congeal. Dr. Hales says in his _Vegetable Statics_, _p._ 16, that the plants which transpire the least, are those which best resist the winter; because they have need of only a small quantity of nutriment to preserve themselves. He says, likewise in the same part, that the plants, which preserve their leaves during winter, are those which transpire the least; nevertheless, we know that the orange tree, the myrtle, and still more the jessamine of Arabia, &c. are very sensible to frost, although these trees preserve their leaves during winter; we must, therefore, have recourse to another cause to explain why certain trees which do not shed their leaves in winter, so well support the sharpest frosts. We have sawed many trees which were attacked with this malady, and have almost always found, under the prominent cicatrice, a deposit of sap or rotten wood, and they are easily distinguished from what are called in the forest terms, sinks or gutters, because the defects which proceed from an alteration of the ligneous fibres, which is internally produced, occasion no cicatrice to change the external form of the trees, whereas the chinks produced by frosts, which proceed from a cleft afterwards covered by a cicatrice, make a ridge or eminence in the form of a cord, which announces the internal defect.