56 FLORA OF THE 



tree — undoubtedly meaning thereby that they thought it 

 of great importance — is not very clear.^ 



The juice of the grains of the pomegranate is largely 

 used in oriental countries for making ' sherbet ; ' and 

 as any sweet juice, if fermented, will produce an alcoholic 

 liquor, it would appear not improbable that some kind 

 of wine may have been made of it. Anyhow this 

 ' sherbet ' is supposed to have medicinal virtues in 

 oriental countries. Moreover, the rind of the fruit, 

 besides possessing medicinal value, has a great deal of 

 tannin, and as the tree grew wild in forests, the fruit- 

 rind may have been largely used for tanning leather. 



The art of tanning must have been known to the 

 Assyrians from a very remote period. Besides using 

 skins for clothing, and probably also for sandals and 

 shoes, they used them for carrying water, and also 

 inflated, them for floating rafts, and for swimming pur- 

 poses. These skins, continually in contact with water, 

 unless tanned, would soon have rotted and become 

 useless. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that the 

 art of tanning was well known to those people. In that 

 case a tanning material so common as that of the 

 pomegranate would be a very important article. 



That they used its stem and branches for firewood 

 is evident from their cutting down pomegranate trees 



' Dr. Birdwood (Indian Arts) says that the 'tree of life,' represented 

 on modern Yarkund rugs, is always a potJiegrattale tree. 



