118 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



laurel by Willdenow or Persoon, the oil of which serves for 

 burning, is the L glauca ; but it does not answer to the characters 

 of the laurel used in Madeira for the same purpose, which is 

 much more hke the /. persea, were it not for the size of the fruit, 

 which is that of an oUve, rather than a pear ; it has a very fragrant 

 smell, but without a better specimen I cannot decide it ; perhaps 

 its umbellate bunches may refer it to the /. umbellata of Persoon. 

 The taxus baccata grows on the sides of the Coural, to a sufficient 

 size to admit of its being made into tables and chairs. The cedar 

 of Madeira^ is the juniperus drupacea, which had only hitherto 

 been found (by Labilliardiere) on Mount Cassius in Syria^. Two 



pennyweight. The vinhaf.ir.n bore 361 pounds, and weighed eight ounces : it is an 

 e.vcellent substitute for mahogany. The chestnut (fagus castanea), which is always 

 preferred for such works as are exposed to the weather, weighed five ounces and bore 

 264 pounds. See an account of similar experiments on the strength of the timber 

 used in Bengal, in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, by which 

 it appears, that a similar prism of the soondry bore 593 pounds, and weighed fifteen 

 and a quarter ounces. The teak bearing 449 pounds, and weighed eleven ounces. 

 The same bulk of pure water, weigh 13f . It would seem from the experiments there 

 recorded, as well as the three I have made, that the strength of the wood increases 

 with its gravity. Firs full of resin, however, such as the Baltic red fir, weighs a 

 fraction, and bears a few pounds less, than those (such as the Nepaul fir) which are 

 not. A prism of the heath (erica arborea), which is of a yellowish rose colour, but 

 brittle to work, weighed fourteen ounces ; of the cactus opuntia, (which remains 

 flexible until dry, and then becomes brittle and shrinks up to one half of its original 

 dimensions) three ounces six pennyweights; of the draccena draco, 8.96; the prism 

 of heath wood was cut from a trunk three and a half feet in circumference ; that of 

 the cactus was two and a half feet. 



• Cadamosto had justly designated it as "muito cheiroso e semelhante ao cypreste;" 

 the indigenous species of cypress is new. Cupressus Madeirensis foliis multifariam, 

 imbricatis, alternis, ramis pendulis, strobilis globosis, squamis, mucronatis, quadrilo- 

 cularis, polyspermis. Flor. ignotis. 



f The Camera have, within these few years, strictly forbidden the cutting down of 

 the cedar- tree, having remarked, that the springs which they sheltered, disappeared, 

 and that in a very short time afterwards ; the physiciens of the island, still obstinately 

 attached to those systems which are everywhere else forgotten, insist, that these 



