Chap. 30.] CITRUS T1BLES. 195 



The largest table that has ever yet been known was one 

 that belonged to PtolemaBus, king of Mauretania ; it was made 

 of two semicircumferences joined together down the middle, 

 being four feet and a half in diameter, and a quarter of a foot 

 in thickness : the most wonderful fact, however, connected 

 with it, was the surprising skill with which the joining had 

 been concealed, 51 and which rendered it more valuable than if 

 it had been by nature a single piece of wood. The largest 

 table that is made of a single piece of wood, is the one that 

 takes its name 52 from Nomius, a freedman of Tiberius Caesar. 

 The diameter of it is four feet, short by three quarters of an 

 inch, and it is half a foot in thickness, less the same fraction. 

 While speaking upon this subject, I ought not to omit to men- 

 tion that the Emperor Tiberius had a table that exceeded four 

 feet in diameter by two inches and a quarter, and was an inch 

 and a half in thickness : this, however, was only covered with 

 a veneer of citrus-wood, while that which belonged to his 

 freedman Nomius was so costly, the whole material of which 

 it was composed being knotted 53 wood. 



These knots are properly a disease or excrescence of the 

 root, and those used for this purpose are more particularly 

 esteemed which have lain entirely concealed under ground ; 

 they are much more rare than those that grow above ground, 

 and that are to be found on the branches also. Thus, to speak 

 correctly, that which we buy at so vast a price is in reality a 

 defect in the tree : of the size and root of it a notion may be 

 easily formed from the circular sections of its trunk. The 

 tree resembles the wild female cypress 54 in its foliage, smell, 

 and the appearance of the trunk. A spot called Mount Anco- 

 rarius, in Nearer Mauretania, used formerly to furnish the 

 most esteemed citrus-wood, but at the present day the supply 

 is quite exhausted. 



CHAP.- 30. — THE POINTS THAT ARE DESIKABLE OR OTHERWISE IN 



THESE TABLES. 



The principal merit of these tables is to have veins 55 arranged 



51 This is considered nothing remarkable at the present day, such is the 

 skill displayed by our cabinet-makers. 



5 - Called " Nomiana." f Tuber. _ 



5i The European Cyprus, the Cupressus sempervirens of Linn.eus. 

 65 These veins were nothing in reality but the lines of the layers or 



o 2 



