142 SYLVA BOOK i 



1 When Sicoris to his own banks restor'd, 

 Had quit the field, of twigs, and willow-board 

 They build small craft, cover'd with bullocks-hide, 

 In which they reach'd the rivers farther side : 

 So sail the Veneti if Padus flow, 

 The Britains sail on their rough ocean so. 



Also for fuel : In many of the mosses in the West- 

 Riding of Yorkshire, are often dug up birch-trees, 

 that burn and flame like firr and candle-wood ; and 

 I think Pliny says the Gaules extracted a sort of 

 bitumen out of birch : Great and small coal, are made 

 by the charring of this wood ; (see Book in Chap. 

 4. of fuel) as of the tops and loppings, Mr. Howard's 

 new tanne. The inner white cuticle and silken-bark, 

 (which strips off of it self almost yearly) was ancient- 

 ly us'd for writing-tables, even before the invention 

 of paper ; of which there is a birch-tree in Canada, 

 whose bark will serve to write on, and may be made 

 into books, and of the twigs very pretty baskets ; 

 with the outward thicker and courser part of the 

 common birch, are divers houses in Russia, Poland, 

 and those poor northern tracts cover'd, instead of 

 slates and tyle : Nay, one who has lately publish'd 

 an account of Sweden, says, that the poor people 

 grind the very bark of birch-trees, to mingle with 

 their bread-corn. 'Tis affirm'd by Cardan, that some 

 birch-roots are so very extravagantly vein'd, as to re- 

 present the shapes and images of beasts, birds, trees, 

 and many other pretty resemblances. Lastly, of the 



1 Primum cana salix madefacto vimine, parvam 

 Texitur in puppim, caesoque induta juvenco, 

 Vectoris patiens, tumidum super emicat amnem. 

 Sic Venetus stagnante Pado, fusoque Britannus 

 Navigat oceano 



3 See Philos. Transact. Vol. 9. num. 105. p. 93. 



