gives out, the charcoal being heavy, compact and long-lived. The species which furnish the best wood are Carya alba (shell-bark hickory), C. tomentosa (mockernut), C. olivaeformis (pecan or pacane nut), and C. porcina (pig-nut), that of the last named, on account of its extreme tenacity, being preferred for axle-trees and axle-handles. The wood of C. alba splits very easily and is very elastic, so that it is much used for making whip-handles and baskets. The wood of this species is also used in the neighbourhood of New York and Philadelphia for making the back bows of Windsor chairs. The timber of C. amara and C. aquatica is considered of inferior quality.
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| Fig. 1.—Shell-bark Hickory (Carya alba) in flower. |
Most of the hickories form fine-looking noble trees of from 60 to 90 ft. in height, with straight, symmetrical trunks, well-balanced ample heads, and bold, handsome, pinnated foliage. When confined in the forest they shoot up 50 to 60 ft. without branches, but when standing alone they expand into a fine head, and produce a lofty round-headed pyramid of foliage. They have all the qualities necessary to constitute fine graceful park trees. The most ornamental of the species are C. olivaeformis, C. alba and C. porcina, the last two also producing delicious nuts, and being worthy of cultivation for their fruit alone.
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| Fig. 2.—1, Fruit of Carya alba; 2, Hickory Nut; 3, Cross Section of Nut; 4, Vertical Section of the Seed. |
The husk of the hickory nut, as already stated, breaks up into four equal valves or separates into four equal portions in the upper part, while the nut itself is tolerably even on the surface, but has four or more blunt angles in its transverse outline. The hickory nuts of the American markets are the produce of C. alba, called the shell-bark hickory because of the roughness of its bark, which becomes loosened from the trunk in long scales bending outwards at the extremities and adhering only by the middle. The nuts are much esteemed in all parts of the States, and are exported in considerable quantities to Europe. The pecan-nuts, which come from the Western States, are from 1 in. to 112 in. long, smooth, cylindrical, pointed at the ends and thin-shelled, with the kernels full, not like those of most of the hickories divided by partitions, and of delicate and agreeable flavour. The thick-shelled fruits of the pig-nut are generally left on the ground for swine, squirrels, &c., to devour. In C. amara the kernel is so bitter that even squirrels refuse to eat it.
HICKS, ELIAS (1748–1830), American Quaker, was born in Hempstead township, Long Island, on the 19th of March 1748.
His parents were Friends, but he took little interest in religion
until he was about twenty; soon after that time he gave up
the carpenter’s trade, to which he had been apprenticed when
seventeen, and became a farmer. By 1775 he had “openings
leading to the ministry” and was “deeply engaged for the
right administration of discipline and order in the church,”
and in 1779 he first set out on his itinerant preaching tours
between Vermont and Maryland. He attacked slavery, even
when preaching in Maryland; wrote Observations on the Slavery
of the Africans and their Descendants (1811); and was influential
in procuring the passage (in 1817) of the act declaring free after
1827 all negroes born in New York and not freed by the Act of
1799. He died at Jericho, Long Island, on the 27th of February
1830. His preaching was practical rather than doctrinal and he
was heartily opposed to any set creed; hence his successful opposition
at the Baltimore yearly meeting of 1817 to the proposed creed
which would make the Society in America approach the position
of the English Friends by definite doctrinal statements. His
Doctrinal Epistle (1824) stated his position, and a break ensued
in 1827–1828, Hicks’s followers, who call themselves the “Liberal
Branch,” being called “Hicksites” by the “Orthodox” party,
which they for a time outnumbered. The village of Hicksville,
in Nassau County, New York, 15 m. E. of Jamaica, lies in the
centre of the Quaker district of Long Island and was named
in honour of Elias Hicks.
See A Series of Extemporaneous Discourses ... by Elias Hicks (Philadelphia, 1825); The Journal of the Life and Labors of Elias Hicks (Philadelphia, 1828), and his Letters (Philadelphia, 1834).
HICKS, HENRY (1837–1899), British physician and geologist,
was born on the 26th of May 1837 at St David’s, in Pembrokeshire,
where his father, Thomas Hicks, was a surgeon. He
studied medicine at Guy’s Hospital, London, qualifying as
M.R.C.S. in 1862. Returning to his native place he commenced
a practice which he continued until 1871, when he removed to
Hendon. He then devoted special attention to mental diseases,
took the degree of M.D. at St Andrews in 1878, and continued
his medical work until the close of his life. In Wales he had
been attracted to geology by J. W. Salter (then palaeontologist
to the Geological Survey), and his leisure time was given to the
study of the older rocks and fossils of South Wales. In conjunction
with Salter, he established in 1865 the Menevian group
(Middle Cambrian) characterized by the trilobite Paradoxides.
Subsequently Hicks contributed a series of important papers
on the Cambrian and Lower Silurian rocks, and figured and
described many new species of fossils. Later he worked at the
Pre-Cambrian rocks of St David’s, describing the Dimetian
(granitoid rock) and the Pebidian (volcanic series), and his
views, though contested, have been generally accepted. At
Hendon Dr Hicks gave much attention to the local geology
and also to the Pleistocene deposits of the Denbighshire caves.
For a few years before his death he had laboured at the
Devonian rocks. With his keen eye for fossils he detected
organic remains in the Morte slates, previously regarded as
unfossiliferous, and these he regarded as including representatives
of Lower Devonian and Silurian. His papers were mostly
published in the Geol. Mag. and Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. He
was elected F.R.S. in 1885, and president of the Geological
Society of London 1896–1898. He died at Hendon on the 18th
of November 1899.
HICKS, WILLIAM (1830–1883), British soldier, entered the
Bombay army in 1849, and served through the Indian mutiny,
being mentioned in despatches for good conduct at the action
of Sitka Ghaut in 1859. In 1861 he became captain, and in the
