I wonder why just this topic has such a lot of traffic.
For to be serious, every bowyer denying the existence of these "rings" should easily not call Saul but the closest eye specialist. If we could call these rings within the growthrings "lunar rings" is another question. Above all in elm an almost blind one has to see them. If the growing season is leaving its marks as the "non growing season" it is almost logical that they are more detailed marks like the "lunar rings". Life is not just "yes" or "not".
I find it heavily careless to ignore traditional wisdom, sorry but high tech science is to often acting like a god. How boring would life be without traditional wisdom, without myth and magic, trials and errors. I don' t believe any experienced bowyer stating all his work is based on rationality and science. Above all tillering is much more a feeling than everything else?
Simson, I don' t know why you try to affect others here, but as far as I know the Bavarians still believe the Earth to be a disk and everything is based on weiss beer. Don' t worry, I' m native Bavarian too.
For to quote the "spacemen. net"(
http://www.raumfahrer.net/astronomie/sonnensystem/mond_einfluss.shtml)
.......Forscher der Technischen Hochschule in Zürich haben jetzt belegen können, dass es in Bäumen auch Ebbe und Flut gibt. Die Biologen haben dafür tropische Bäume untersucht. Mit einer Apparatur maßen sie den Durchmesser der Pflanzen auf Hundertstel Millimeter genau. Das Ergebnis zeigt ein schwellen und schrumpfen der Bäume im Rhythmus der Gezeiten. Der Zweck dieses Naturschauspiels ist aber noch ungeklärt.............
Translated: researchers of the Technical University of Zurich could prove now(2002) that there is even low and high tide within trees. Biologists researched tropical trees. They measured the diameter of the trees at a hundredth of millimeters. The result is confirming the swelling and shrinking of the trees corresponding the rhythm of the tides. Still the sense of this natural spectacle is unclear......................
The point is that Simsons source is the University of Zurich, my source is the Technical University of Zurich. Two tempels of infallibility( of the same town) came to just opposite conclusions!? So far science.
It would be interesting to make bows of "staves" cut corresponding to some lunar phases and to compare them to "non lunar" staves.
I guess I' ll not find the spare time to do it.
Michael