LASTING PROPERTIES OF WOOD 



punch to a depth of one-twentieth of an inch in Lignum vitce. 

 Even Hickory and Oak (if of good quality) require a pressure 

 of 32001b. to the square inch to do this. On the other 

 hand the Cotton tree of India (Bomhax malaharicum) has 

 exceedingly soft wood. It is quite easy to drive a pin into 

 the wood with the fingers. 



Some woods are far too heavy to float: many tropical 

 woods are especially very weighty. Perhaps the Black Iron- 

 wood, of which a cubic foot weighs 85 lb., is the heaviest of 

 all. But the same volume of Poplar, Willow, or Spruce does 

 not weigh more than 24 lb. 



There are many ancient and modern instances of the 

 extraordinary way in which timber lasts when at all carefully 

 looked after. Thus the Cedar which "Hiram rafted 

 down "" to make the temple of Solomon (probably Cedar of 

 Lebanon) seems to have been extraordinarily durable. Pliny 

 says that the beams of the temple of Apollo at Utica were 

 sound 1200 years after they were erected. 



Cypress wood (Cupressus sempervirens) was often used to 

 make chests for clothes because the clothes moth cannot 

 penetrate it, and it also lasts a very long time. There is a 

 chest of this wood in the South Kensington Museum which 

 is 600-700 years old. The Cypresswood gates of Con- 

 stantinople were eleven centuries old when they were 

 destroyed by the Turks in 1453. The fleet of Alexander 

 the Great, and the bridge over the Euphrates built by 

 Semiramis, were made of Cypress. This wood seems to have 

 been of extraordinary value to the ancients, and was used 

 for mummy cases in Egypt, for coffins by the Popes, as well 

 as for harps and organ pipes. ^ 



* Most of these interesting details are found in Boulger's valuable 

 treatise on " Wood." 



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