CHAP, iv S Y L V A 87 



makes deepest impression in the earth, or in the 

 water being floated ; also what is without knots, yet 

 firm, and free from sap ; which is that fatty, whiter, 

 and softer part, call'd by the Ancients alburnum^ which 

 you are diligently to hew away ; here we have much 

 ado about the torulus of the fir, and the ^>Xotw8?jc KVK\O^ 

 by both Vitruvius and Theophrastus, which I pass 

 over. You shall perceive some which has a spiral 

 convolution of the veins ; but it is a vice proceeding 

 from the severity of unseasonable Winters, and defect 

 of good nutriment. 



10. My Lord Bacon, Exp. 658. recommends for 

 tryal of a sound or knotty piece of timber, to cause 

 one to speak at one of the extreams to his companion 

 listning at the other ; for if it be knotty, the sound 

 (says he) will come abrupt. 



1 1 . Moreover, it is expedient that you know 

 which is the grain, and which are the veins in 

 timber, (whence the term Jiuviari arborem) because 

 of the difficulty of working against it : Those there- 

 fore are counted the veins which grow largest, and 

 are softer for the benefit of cleaving and hewing ; 

 that the grain or pectines, which runs in waves, and 

 makes the divers and beautiful chamfers which some 

 woods abound in to admiration. The fir-tree hori- 

 zontally cut, has two circles of different fibres, which 

 (when the timber comes to be cleft in the middle) 

 separates into four different waves, whence Pliny 

 calls them quadrifluvios, and it is to be noted, that the 

 nodous, and knotty part of these sort of trees, is that 

 only which grows from the first boughs to the summit 

 or top, by Vitruvius term'd thejusterna, which both 

 Baldus, and Salmasius derive afuste. The other clean 

 part, free of these boils, (being that which when the 



