Chap. 77.] METHODS OF OBTAINING FIltE FROM WOOD. 421 



proved thereby. Its colour is imitated remarkably well with 

 the walnut and the wild pear, which have its peculiar tint 

 imparted to them by being boiled in colouring liquid. The 

 wood of all the trees of which we have here made mention is 

 firm and compact. Next after them comes the cornel, although 

 it can hardly be looked upon as timber, in consequence of its 

 remarkable slimness ; the wood of it, in fact, is used for hardly 

 any other purpose than the spokes of wheels, or else for mak- 

 ing wedges for splitting wood, and pins or bolts, which have 

 all the hardness of those of iron. Besides these, there are 

 the holm-oak, the wild and the cultivated olive, the ehesnut, 

 the yoke- elm, and the poplar. This last is mottled simi- 

 larly to the maple, and would be used for joiners' work if wood 

 could be good for anything when the branches are so often 

 lopped : that acting upon the tree as a sort of castration, and 

 depriving it of its strength. In addition to these facts, most of 

 these trees, but the robur more particularly, are so extremely 

 hard, that it is quite impossible to bore the wood till it has 

 been soaked in water ; and even then, a nail once driven home 

 cannot be drawn out again. On the other hand, a nail has no 26 

 hold in cedar. The wood of the lime is the softest of all, and, 

 as it would appear, the hottest by nature ; a proof of this,- they 

 say, is the fact that it will turn the edge of the adze sooner 

 than any other wood. 27 In the number, also, of the trees that 

 are hot by nature, are the mulberry, the laurel, the ivy, and 

 all those woods from which fire is kindled by attrition. 



CHAP. 77. — METHODS OF OBTAINING F1KE FE.OH WOOD. 



This is a method 28 which has been employed by the outposts 

 of armies, and by shepherds, on occasions when there has not 

 been a stone at hand to strike fire with. Two pieces of wood 

 are rubbed briskly together, and the friction ^soon sets them on 

 fire; -which is caught on dry and inflammable substances, fun- 

 guses and leaves being found to ignite the most readily. There 

 is nothing superior to the wood of the i\j for rubbing against, 



26 This is not the case ; a nail has a firm hold in all resinous woods. 



27 This is evidently a puerile absurdity : but it is borrowed from Theo- 

 phrastus, Hist. Plant. B. v. c. 4. 



28 The savages of North America, and, indeed, of all part's of the globe, 

 seem to have been acquainted with this method of kindling fire from the 

 very earliest times. 



