198 THE LARCH. 



of the intended joke or not, but the shafts wore out 

 the cart, and the carter as well, and were still good 

 many years after him. From that time henceforward 

 many persons have made use of the larch for that and 

 similar purposes, and at the present day it is almost 

 as difficult to find the shafts of a cart made of any 

 other wood than larch, as it was at that time to find 

 them made of it. 



Like everything else, if good, it is overlaid with 

 praises and unduly extolled, and if bad, it is too 

 severely condemned, and the good that is in it is either 

 denied or neutralised. 



Some accounts given of the larch make it appear 

 that it will not burn, and that it will resist fire 

 almost as completely as iron or brass. Some, again, 

 have said that the larch burns stronger and brighter 

 than any other wood, and that the army of Han- 

 nibal, on crossing the Alps, made use of it in first 

 heating the rocks before pouring vinegar upon them 

 to rend and disintegrate them. Some old accounts 

 say that the larch, as furniture or as dressed wood, 

 shines in the dark as if all in a blaze of fire, and so 

 bright that people at a distance would say the place 

 was in a state of conflagration. Others would per- 

 suade us that neither saw, axe, nor other edged tool 

 would take effect upon it or cut it, and that great 

 danger attended the application of the plane, chisel, or 

 other sharp instrument, and that such instrument 

 would fly to pieces on coming in contact with it, and 

 do bodily harm to the operator. 



