1793- on the value and uses of the larch tree, 4 
the improvement of arts, manufactures, or agricul- 
ture in any way. 
The incorruptibility of this wood has been several 
times hinted in this miscellany and other perfor= 
mances ; but as the facts which prove this cannot 
be too generally known, there will be little harm in 
recapitulating some of these, and adding some others 
lefs generally known. 
Vitruvius mentions this wood as the best that 
had ever been known for rafters, and other parts of 
the wood work in buildings that required great 
strength; and attributes the perifhable nature of mo. 
dern buildings in his time, in a great measure to 
the want of it in the neighbourhood of Rome. The 
houses of Venice are well known to be built upon 
piles of larch wood, which have remained sound 
for many hundred years, and are now found 
to be so hard as to resist an edged tool almost like 
a petrifaction. Many of the pictures. of Raphael 
Urban are painted upon boards of larch wood, which 
are still perfectly entire. It is about three hundred 
years since he died. Had the wood either fhrunk 
or warped during that time, it is evident the paint- 
ings must have heen destroyed ; as must also hays, 
been the case had it been eaten by worms, 
These are a few facts that have been long known in 
Europe. The following have been more lately obser- 
ved, andare lefs generally known. ‘ [have in my gar- 
den, says M. le president de la Tour D’ArcuEs, in the 
year 1787, some rails, part of which are oak, and part 
of them larch wood. Therails were made in the year 
1743, and only once painted. The oak has yielded 
