242 S Y L V A BOOK ii 



very streets are pav'd with it, (the bodies of the trees 

 lying prostrate one by one in manner of a raft) but 

 the renowned city of Constantinople ; and nearer 

 home Tholose in France, was within little more than 

 an hundred years, most of fir, which is now wholly 

 marble and brick, after 800 houses had been burnt, 

 as it often chances at Constantinople ; but where no 

 accident even of this devouring nature, will at all 

 move them to re-edifie with more lasting materials. 

 To conclude with the uses of fir, we have most of 

 our pot-ashes of this wood, together with torch, or 

 funebral-staves ; nay, and of old, spears of it, if we 

 may credit Virgil's Amazonian combat, 



1 She prest 



A long fir-spear through his exposed breast. 



Lastly, the very chips, or shavings of deal-boards, 

 are of other use than to kindle fires alone : Thomas 

 Bartholinus in his Medicina Danorum Dissert. 7, &c. 

 where he disclaims the use of hops in beer, (as 

 pernicious and malignant, and from several instances 

 how apt it is to produce and usher in infections, nay, 

 plagues, G?c.) would substitute in its place, the 

 shavings of deal-boards, as he affirms, to give a 

 grateful odor to the drink ; and how soveraign those 

 resinous-woods, the tops of fir, and pines, are against 

 the scorbut, gravel in the kidneys, 6?c. we generally 

 find : It is in the same chapter, that he commends 

 also wormwood, marrubium^ chamelczagnum^ sage, 

 tamarisc, and almost any thing, rather than hops. 

 The bark of the pine heals ulcers ; and the inner rind 



' l Cujus apertum 



Adversi longa transverberat abiete pectus. 



n. ii. 



