90 S Y L V A BOOK in 



exquisite politure ; and for this, lin-seed, or the sweeter 

 nut-oyl does the effect best : Pliny gives us the receipt, 

 with a decoction of walnut-shells, and certain wild 

 pears : Next to these, oak, for ships, and houses (or 

 more minutely) the oak for the keel, the robur for the 

 prow, walnut the stern, elm the pump ; Furnerus 

 1. i. c. 22. conceives the ark to have been built of 

 several woods ; Cornell, holly, &c. for pins, wedges, 

 Gfc. chesnut, horn-beam, poplar, &c. then for buck- 

 lars, and targets, were commended the more soft and 

 moist ; because apt to close, swell, and make up their 

 wounds again ; such as willow, lime, birch, alder, 

 elder, ash, poplar, &c. 



The robur^ or wild-oak-timber, best to stand in 

 ground ; the quercus without ; and our English, for 

 being least obnoxious to splinter, and the Irish for 

 resisting the worm (tough as leather) are doubtless 

 for shipping to be preferr'd before all other : The 

 cypress, fir, pines, cedar, &c. are best for posts, and 

 columns, because of their erect growth, natural and 

 comely diminutions. Then again it is noted, that 

 Oriental trees are hardest towards the cortex or bark, 

 our Western towards the middle which we call the 

 heart ; and that trees which bear no fruit, or but 

 little, are more durable than the more pregnant. It 

 is noted of oak, that the knot of an inveterate tree, 

 just where a lusty arm joins to the stem, is as curiously 

 vein'd as the walnut, which omitted in the chapter 

 of the oak, I here observe. The palmeto growing to 

 that prodigious height in the Barbadoes, and whose 

 top bears an excellently tasted cabage, grows so won- 

 derfully hard, that an edge-tool will scarce be forced 

 into it. 



Pines, pitch, alder, and elm, are excellent to make 



