154 REMARKS ON THE CYPRESS. 



planted when the foundation of Rome was laid, and which fell, 

 he says, through careless neglect, on the last year of Nero's reign. 

 The same author tells us, the famous statue of Vejovis, Jupiter, 

 in the capitol, was made of cypress wood; and that when he wrote 

 it was perfectly sound, although it had been dedicated and conse- 

 crated to the temple since the second year of the foundation of 

 Rome. Theophrastus, who calls this tree Kupariton, tells us, 

 that the doors of the celebrated temple of Ephesus were formed 

 of this durable wood; and the doors of St. Peter's church, at Rome, 

 were framed of cypress timber, which lasted from Constantine, to 

 Pope Eugenius IV. 's time, which was eleven hundred years, and 

 were then sound and entire, when the pope took them down to 

 change them for bronze gates. The Egyptians kept their mum- 

 mies inchests of cypress wood ; andThucydides, a Greek historian 

 who wrote about 400 years before the birth of Christ, tells that 

 the Athenians used to bury their heroes in coffins formed of this 

 timber; and Aristocles, the celebrated Athenian philosopher, (who 

 was called Plato, from the largeness of his shoulders), and who 

 flourished about the same time with Thucydides, would have the 

 laws and sacred rites inscribed on tablets of cypress wood in pre- 

 ference to brass. 



The Babylonian history affirms, that the lasting bridge, which 

 Semiramis caused to be built over the Euphrates, about 1960 

 before the Christian era, was entirely formed of this timber; and 

 some learned writers, who do not hesitate to go 389 years farther 

 back, endeavour to prove, that the gopher mentioned in Scripture 

 as the wood of which the ark was built, was no other than cypress, 

 and which is not confuted by other learned authors ; such as Isa, 

 Vossius, and David Kinchi, who will have gopher to signify only 

 resinous timber. Epiphanius, abishop of Salamis, who died A. D. 

 403, tells us, some relics of the ark, lasted even to his days: and 

 which was judged to have been of cypress. It is known, that at 

 Crete this timber was employed in building the largest ships ; and 

 Virgil tells us, " that cypress provides for keels of ships that scour 

 the watery plains." Aristobulus affirms, that the Assyrians made 

 shipping of this timber ; and so plentiful was this tree about those 

 parts of Assyria, where the ark is conjectured to have been built, 

 that those vast armadas which Alexander the Great caused to be 

 equipped and sent out from Babylon, consisted only of cypress. 



(To be Continued.) 



