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CHESTS 
they had never seen any pine whatever in the oaken 
chests and cupboards made in England during the 
seventeenth century. This would appear to be the 
rule also for Holland, Belgium, and Northwestern 
Germany. There is, however, one exception, at least, 
in the Thaulow Museum at Kiel, No. 925 of the cata- 
logue of 1884. This is a large cupboard in which 
pine is found in places similar to those mentioned in 
our chests. 
The habit of making chests with one drawer un- 
derneath was practiced in Europe in the seventeenth 
century; but, according to the best information that 
we can obtain, chests with two tiers of drawers un- 
derneath must have been exceedingly rare and excep- 
tional, if, indeed, they were made at all. 
The color of the oak in many New England chests 
corresponds to that found in old timbers of the 
American white oak taken from houses known to 
have been built considerably more than a century 
ago. The color of the American white oak, the 
Quercus alba, is, as a rule, several shades lighter than 
the European oak. This color test, however, is not 
always available, as some specimens of European oak 
are much lighter than others, and the wood of some 
chests made of American oak may have acquired, 
through age and exposure, a much darker hue than 
the average. When, however, we see in this country 
a piece of oak with its color nearly or quite as dark