420 plant's natueal histqey. [Book XVI. 



more wonderful than this ship : one hundred and twenty thou- 

 sand modii of lentils formed its ballast ; and the length of it 

 took up the greater part of the left side of the harbour at Ostia. 

 It was sunk at that spot by order of the Emperor Claudius, 

 three moles, each as high as a tower, being built upon it ; 

 they were constructed with cement 21 which the same vessel 

 had conveyed from Puteoli. It took the arms of four men to 

 span the girth of this tree, and we not unfrequently hear of 

 the price of masts for such purposes, as being eighty thousand 

 sesterces or more : rafts, too, of this wood are sometimes put 

 together, the value of which is forty thousand. In Egypt and 

 Syria, it is said, the kings, for want of fir, used to employ 

 cedar 22 for building their ships : the largest cedar that we find 

 mentioned is said to have come from Cyprus, where it was cut 

 to form the mast of a galley of eleven tiers of oars that be- 

 longed to Demetrius : it was one hundred and thirty feet in 

 length, and took three men to span its girth. The pirates of 

 Germany navigate their seas in vessels formed of a single tree 

 hollowed 33 out : some of these will hold as many as thirty 

 men. 



Of all woods, the most compact, and consequently the hea- 

 viest, are the ebony and the box, both of them of a slender 

 make. Neither of these woods will float in water, nor, indeed, 

 will that of the cork tree, if the bark is removed ; the same is 

 the case, too, with the wood of the larch. Of the other woods, 

 the driest is that of the tree known at Rome as the lotus, 24 

 and next, that of the robur, when the white sap has been re- 

 moved. The wood of the robur is dark, and that of the cy- 

 tisus 25 still more so, approaching, in fact, the nearest of all to 

 the colour of ebony; though there are not wanting writers who 

 assert that the wood of the Syrian terebinth is darker. 26 An 

 artist of the name of Thericles is highly spoken of for his skill 

 in turning goblets from the wood of the terebinth : and, indeed, 

 that fact is a proof of the goodness of the wood. Terebinth is 

 the only wood that requires to be rubbed with oil, and is im- 



21 Seo B. xxxvi. c. 14. This was a mortar made of volcanic ashes, 

 w:iich hardened under water. It is now known as Pozzuolane. 



22 The Pinus cedrus of Linnaeus. 



23 The canoes were formed probably of the fir. 



24 The Celtis australis of Linnaeus. 



25 See B. xiii. c. 27. 



- 6 This, Fee says, is not the case, if the Syrian terebinth is the same as 

 the Ptstacia terebinthus of Linnaeus. 



