INTEODUCTION INTO GEEAT BRITAIN. 9 



since to be seen about Chelmsford in Essex) sufficiently 

 reproaches our not cultivating so useful a material for 

 many purposes where lasting and substantial timber 

 is required, for we read of beams of no less than 120 

 feet in length made out of this goodly tree, which is 

 of so strange a composition that 'twill hardly burn, 

 whence * Mantuan et robusta larix igni impenetrabile 

 lignum,' for so Caesar found it in a castle he besieged 

 built of it (the story is recited at large by Yitruvius, 

 1. 2. 0.9.), but see what Philander says upon the place on 

 his own experience ; yet the coals thereof were held 

 far better than any other for the melting on iron and 

 the locksmith, and to say the truth, we find they burn 

 it frequently as common fuel in the Yaltoline, if at 

 least it be the true Larix, which they now call Melere. 

 There is abundance of this larch timber in the build- 

 ings at Venice, especially about the palaces in Piazza 

 San Marco, where I remember Seamozzi says he him- 

 self used much of it, and infinitely commends it. Xor 

 did they only use it in houses, but in naval architecture 

 also ; the ship mentioned by Witsen (a late Dutch 

 writer of that useful art) to have been found not long 

 since in the Numidian Sea, twelve fathoms under 

 water, being chiefly built of the timber and cypress, 

 both reduced to that induration and hardness as greatly 

 to resist the fire and the sharpest tool; nor was anything 

 perished of it, though it had lain above a thousand and 

 four hundred years submerged. The decks were covered 

 with linnen and plates of lead, fixed with nails guilt, 

 and the entire ship, which contained thirty feet in 



