CHAP. cxrn. 



coni'ferjT:. la^rjx. 



2357 



s^s-Yfnwy, 



'y 'HI 



yf/JlMf^^^ 



22G3 



bable. Pliny frequently mentions the larch; and, in his 16th book, has 

 given the description of it which we have already quoted (see p. 2112.). In 

 another place, he tells us that larch timber is not corruptible like that of any 

 other pine ; and that, when set on fire, it burns more like a stone than a 

 piece of wood, never causing flame. (Lib. xvi. c. 40.) He also says the tree 

 never flowers. These exaggerated assertions have occasioned doubts to 

 be expressed as to whether Pliny was really acquainted with the larch ; but 

 we find so many similar exaggerations and fabulous relations in his work re- 

 specting other trees, that we see no sufficient reason to doubt it. When 

 Tiberius Cassar built his Naumachia, or aquatic amphitheatre, for exhibiting 

 a naval action as a public spectacle, an enormous larch was brought to Rome, 

 which measured 120 ft. in length, and 2 ft. in diameter at the smallest end. 

 This tree, of which Pliny says, " Amplissima arborum ad hoc aevi existimatur 

 Romae visa," Tiberius admired so much, that he would not permit it to be used 

 as timber, but had it preserved as a curiosit}' for public admiration. Nero, how- 

 ever, had it cut up for an amphitheatre erected by him. The Forum of Augustus 

 was built with larch wood, as were several bridges in Rome. Vitruvius men- 

 tions the larch, and attributes the decay of the buildings of Rome, erected in 

 his day, to the circumstance of this wood being no longer used in their con- 

 struction, the forests of the larch in the neighbourhood of Rome having been 

 exhausted, and the builders not choosing to be at the expense of bringing 

 the timber from a distance. He also says that the wood is so ponderous, 

 that it will sink in water ; and he repeats the assertions of Pliny as to its 

 incorruptibility and incombustibility; adding that Julius Caesar, wishing to 

 set fire to a wooden tower, placed before the gates of a castle in the Alps, 

 called Larignum, which he was besieging, heaped up logs of larch wood 

 around it, which he attempted to ignite, but in vain. It is probably, in 



7 N 4 



