266 S Y L V A BOOK iv 



rude and uncultivated places, amongst rocks and dry 

 pumices, should transude into turpentine, and pearl 

 out into gums, and precious balms ? 



In a word, so astonishing and wonderful is the organ- 

 isms, parts and functions of plants and trees ; as some 

 have, as we said, attributed animal life to them, and 

 that they were living creatures; for so did Anaxagoras, 

 Empedocles, and even Plato himself. 



I am sure plants and trees afford more matter for 1 

 medicine, and the use of man, than either animals and 

 minerals, or any exotic we have besides ; are more 

 familiar at hand, and safe ; and within this late age 

 wonderfully improved, increased and searched into, 

 and seems by the Divine wisdom, to be an inexhaust- 

 ible subject for our disquisition and admiration. 



24. There are ten thousand considerations more, 

 besides that of their medicinal and sanative properties, 

 and the mechanical uses mentioned in this treatise, 

 which a contemplative person may derive from the 

 groves and woods ; all of them the subject of wonder : 

 And though he had only the palm, (which 2 Strabo 

 affirms is fit for three hundred and sixty uses ;) or the 

 coco, which yields wine, bread, milk, oyl, sugar, 

 vinegar, tinctures, tanns, spices, thread, needle, linnen, 

 and cloth, cups, dishes, spoons, and other vessels and 

 utensils ; baskets, mats, umbrellas, paper, brooms, 

 ropes, sails, and almost all that belongs to the rigging 

 of ships. In short, this single tree furnishing a great 

 part of the world with all that even a voluptuous man 

 can need, or almost desire ; it were sufficient to em- 

 ploy his meditations and his hands, as long as he were 

 to live, though his years were as many as the most 



1 Vide Petri Mangot Botan. Monspel. 



2 Vide Mr. Dodart's Hist, de VAcadem. Scient. 



