6o FLORA OF THE 



nating in something much like acorns. It is, perhaps, 

 not improbable that the artist may 

 have meant them for acorns. 



In Mr. George Nicholson's ' En- 

 cyclopaedia of Horticulture,' under the 



Fig. 26.— Sacred tree heading of ' Oak',' I find the fol- 



froni Assyrian cylin- 



Sjs' ^Nlnfvth l°^^i"g: ''Kermes is the insect which 



and Babylon, 'p. 168. ... 1,1 1 \ ^ 



yields a scarlet dye nearly equal to 

 cochineal, and is the 'scarlet' mentioned in Scripture; 

 it feeds on Quercus cocci/era, an oak from Asia Minor. 

 The acorn-cups of Q. cegilops (commercially called 

 vaJloned) are largely imported from the Levant, for 

 the purposes of tanning, dyeing, and making ink. The 

 oak galls of commerce are yielded by Quercus infec- 

 toria, also a native of the Levant ; these are much 

 more rich in tannin than those produced in this 

 country." There is also an oak on the Lebanon 

 mountains called Quercus Libani. 



So we see that the Assyrians must have been 

 acquainted with more than one variety of oak, but 

 whether they may have raised this tree to the rank 

 of a sacred tree for the scarlet dye of ' Kermes,' or 

 for the tanning quality of the bark and acorn-cups, 

 it is impossible to say. That they must have 

 been acquainted with the art of tanning seems most 

 probable, seeing that they used leather for various 

 purposes. 



