58 



VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



Cedar of Lebanon Pinus cedrus. 



with its other qualities, be the most valuable tree in 

 the forest. Its resistance to absolute wear is not 

 indeed equal to that of the oak; but it is so bitter, 

 that no insect whatever will touch it, and it seems to 

 be proof against Time himself. We are told that the 

 timber in the temple of Apollo at Utica was found 

 undecayed after the lapse of two thousand years; and 

 that a beam hi the oratory of Diana, at Saguntum* in 

 Spain, was fetched from Zante, two centuries before 

 the Trojan war. Some of the most celebrated erec- 

 tions of antiquity were constructed of this tree. 

 " Solomon raised a levy of thirty thousand men out 

 of all Israel ; and he sent them to Lebanon, ten 

 thousand a month, by courses ; and he had threescore 

 and ten thousand that bore burthens, and fourscore 

 thousand hewers in the mountains. And he covered 

 the temple with beams and boards of cedar. And he 

 built chambers against it, which rested on the house, 

 with timber of cedar. And the cedar of the house 



* Murveirko. 



