BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 267 
Bermuda Cedar as a separate species, and they believe it to be 
no other than the Virginian Cedar, altered and improved by 
soil and climate. This opinion is not, however, based on exact 
observation, though attention has recently been directed to 
this question, in the hope of solving it, by comparing speci- 
mens of the two trees. 
Neither do they consider the Bermuda Cedar as the wood 
now used in the manufacture of pencils in Great Britain ; for 
it is not an article of exportation intended for this object, 
and it is both harder and of a darker colour than pencils 
usually are, 
Wherever cultivation is neglected, the Cedar springs up in 
Bermuda, and it comes to maturity in about thirty or forty 
years. Looking from the tops of the hills, the central and 
widest part of the islands has the appearance of an uninter- 
rupted forest. Though the trees seldom square to more than 
eight inches, and work with these dimensions to twenty or 
thirty feet long, yet the timber is of great value, particularly 
in ship-building. When felling it for this purpose, part of 
the root is cut out along with the stem of the tree, and the 
degree of curvature required for the timbers of a ship is given 
to it by the angle which the root and the stem form with each 
other, By this mode, the grain of the wood is never cut cross- 
Wise. It does not shrink, and requires no seasoning, but is 
built into the ships fresh from the forest. Owing to this 
quality, the Bermuda trading-vessels are drier than any 
Others, and thus possess a great advantage in the carrying- 
trade of provisions for the supply of the West Indies. | 
Small as the islands are, they afforded timber enough for 
the construction of many small vessels for the Royal Navy 
during the war; and although all their merchant-vessels are 
cedar-built, there now, in 1843, remain in the woods trees 
about to go to decay. 
Bermuda Cedar is sometimes exported to the West In- 
dies for the construction of buildings, as the white ants 
rarely touch it.* : : 
* So in England, a chest lined with cedar, preserves furs or woollen 
articles from the attacks of moths. 
