276 S Y L V A BOOK ii 



of the nerves, astringent and refrigerating, for the 

 hernia, apply'd outwardly, or taken inwardly, for the 

 dysentary, strangury, &c. 



But to resume the disquisition, whether it be truly 

 so proper for shipping, is controverted ; though we 

 also find in Cassiodorus Var. 1. 5. ep. 16, Theodoric 

 (writing to the Pr&torio-prafectus] caused store of it 

 to be provided for that purpose ; and Plato (who we 

 told you made laws, and titles to be engraven in it) 

 nominates it, inter arbores vavTmyots utiles 1. 4. leg. and 

 so does Diodorus 1. 1 9. And as travellers observe, 

 there is no other sort of timber more fit for shipping, 

 though others think it too heavy : Aristobulus affirms 

 that the Assyrians made all their vessels of it ; and 

 indeed the Romans prais'd it, pitch'd with Arabian 

 pitch : And so frequent was this tree about those 

 parts of Assyria (where the Ark is conjectur'd to 

 have been built) that those vast Armada's, which 

 Alexander the Great caus'd to be equipp'd and set 

 out from Babylon, consisted only of cypress, as we 

 learn out of Arrian in Alex. 1. 7. and Strabo 1. 16. 

 Plutar. Sympos. 1. i^prob. 2. Vegetius 1. 14. c. 34, 

 G?c. Paulus Colomesius (in his K^]\ia liter aria cap. 24.) 

 perstringes the most learned Is. Vossius, that in his 

 inndiciae pro LXX. interp. he affirms cypress not fit for 

 ships, as being none of the rerpoywvot : But besides 

 what we have produced, Fuller, Bochartus, &c. Lilius 

 Gyraldus (Lib. de na^ig. c. 4.) and divers others suffi- 

 ciently evince it, and that the vessel built by Trajan 

 was of that material, lasting uncorrupt near 1400 

 years, when it was afterwards found in a certain lake; 

 if it were not rather (as I suspect) that which ^Eneas 

 Silvius reports to have been discovered in his time, 



1 Hadrian. Junius Animadv. 1. i. c. 20. 



