CHAP, iv S Y L V A 275 



sufficiently made it out, that the timber of that de- 

 nomination was of those sort of trees whose branches 

 breaking out just opposite to one another at right 

 angles, make it appear to have been fir, or some sort 

 of wood whose arms grew in a uniform manner ; but 

 surely this is not to be universally taken ; since we 

 find yew, and divers other trees, brittle, heavy, and 

 unapt for shipping, do often put forth in that order : 

 The same learned author will have gopher to signifie 

 only pitch, or bitumen, as much as if the text had 

 said, make an ark of resinous timber. The Chaldee 

 paraphrase translates it cedar, or as Junius and Tre- 

 mellius, cedrelaten^ a species between fir and cedar : 

 Munster contends for the pine, and divers able divines 

 endeavour to prove it cypress ; and besides, 'tis known, 

 that in Crete they employ 'd it for the same use in 

 the largest contignations, and did formerly build ships 

 of it : And Epiphanius Haeres, 1. i. tells us, some 

 reliques of that ark (circa campos sennaar) lasted even 

 to his days, and was judged to have been of cypress. 

 Some indeed suppose that gopher was the name of a 

 place, a cupressis, as Elon a quercubus; and might 

 possibly be that which Strabo calls Gupressetum^ near 

 Adiabene in Assyria : But for the reason of its long 

 lasting, coffins (as noted) for the dead were made of 

 it, and thence it first became to be diti sacra ; and 

 the valves, or doors of the Ephesine temple were 

 likewise of it, as we observ'd but now, were those of 

 St. Peters at Rome : Works of cypress-wood, permanent 

 ad diuturnitatem^ says Vitruvius 1. 2. And the poet 



perpetud nunquam moritura cupresso. 



Mart. E. 6. 6. 



The medical virtues of this tree are for all affects 



