ALEXANDER) 



THE TAMARACK 17 



minded person we feel sure. It is when Wordsworth speaks 

 unkindly of the boughs and leaves that we take exception to his 

 criticism. Plantings of the larch in a massed effect are both 

 beautiful and picturesque. The long "pendant branchets," the 

 soft downy leaves, delicately green, furnish wonderful banks of 

 woodland opulence that hardly another tree could give, if suitably 

 grouped and arranged. 



As a wood the larch is very nearly unique. It is hard, resinous, 

 and unbeUevably durable. The roots are long and of a tough 

 fiberous character. They were well known by the North American 

 Indian and used by him in the building of his birch canoe. 



"Give me of your roots O Tamarack. 

 Of yoiir fibrous roots O Larch tree 

 My canoe to bind together." 



So sang Hiawatha. A western larch (Larix occidentalis) is today 

 of importance to various tribes of Indians. They extract from it a 

 sweet substance resembling dextrine which is used by them as a 

 food. 



While the wood is rich in resin it is still extremely tough and 

 difficult to ignite; it does not splinter easily and was therefore 

 much used in earlier times, in the construction of battleships; and 

 it might be of interest to cite the fact that in France many of the 

 oldest castles were built with much larch wood; and today the 

 timbers hewn from this remarkable tree are sound and firm, while 

 the stones that support them are crumbling. A ntunber of inter- 

 esting stories might be gathered concerning the remarkable charac- 

 ter of this, incombustible and well-nigh indestructable wood, and I 

 will mention two of these to illustrate: It is said that Julius 

 Caesar once tried to force the gates of an old Alpine castle, and hit 

 upon the idea of building a huge tower of logs before it, which were 

 to be ignited and the gates to be destroyed in this manner. The 

 logs he used, however, were those found in the vicinity, and hap- 

 pened to be larch; the attempt was a complete failure, for they 

 failed absolutely to bum. Caesar in the Commentary says of this 

 episode "Robusta larix igni impenetrable lignimi." (the stout larch 

 wood was imperx-ious to ignition). Again Evel^ii, an early 

 Enghsh writer on plants and trees tells of an ancient ship that was 

 found in the Niunidian sea, twelve fathoms deep. It was con- 

 structed of larch and cypress wood and tho foiuteen himdred years 

 old was, when fotmd, still in a good state of preserv'^ation. 



