24-08 ARBORETUM AND FRUTJCETUM. PART III. 



Traite pratique de la Culture des Pins, p. 315., observes : " There appears 

 to be an error in the statement that Pallas found the cedar in Siberia, and on 

 the Altaic Mountains. M. Ferry, a literary man, who resided three years in 

 Siberia, has published a paper in the Bibliotheque Physico-economique, in which 

 he proves that the tree called by the French translator of Pallas's Travels the 

 cedar, was, in fact, Pinus Cembra ; the Russian name for which is kedr. He 

 adds, in confirmation of this, that Pallas, in his Flora Rossica, does not men- 

 tion the cedar of Lebanon, though he speaks fully of P. Cembra ( JFY. Ross., 

 p. 4.); stating that he found it both in forests by" itself, and intermixed with 

 other trees; and that it preferred cold moist places to dry ground. M. Ferry 

 adds that Pallas, in his Travels, invariably calls the trees he mentions by their 

 popular names in their native countries; and that the French translator, 

 meeting with the word kedr in the German work, fancied that it must mean 

 cedar, and translated it accordingly." M. Loiseleur Deslongchamps has also 

 noticed this error in an article entitled Histoire du Cedre du Liban, published 

 in the Annales de V Agrlc. Franc., for 1837, a copy of which we have received 

 since this sheet was in type. 



History. The first account we have of the cedar of Lebanon is that contained in the Bible, where 

 we are told that Moses commanded the lepers among the Israelites to make an offering of two spar- 

 rows, cedar wood, scarlet (that is a lock of wool twice dyed), and hyssop. (Levit., xiv. 4. 6.) The 

 houses in which lepers had dwelt were purified in the same manner. (Ibid., 49, 51, and 52.) When 

 Moses and Aaron were ordered to sacrifice a red heifer (Numbers, xix. 6.), they were also com- 

 manded to throw cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet into the midst of the burning sacrifice ; the ashes 

 of which were gathered up to serve as a purification from sin. \VVhen Solomon rebuilt the temple 

 of Jerusalem, he obtained permission from Hiram, king of Tyre, to cut down the cedar and fir 

 necessary from Mount Lebanon ; and for this purpose he sent fourscore thousand hewers to cut 

 down the trees. There was also a palace built by Solomon, which was called the House of the Forest 

 of Lebanon, from the great quantity of cedar used in its construction. Solomon is stated to 

 have paid to Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat, and twenty measures of pure oil, 

 annually, while the work was in progress ; and, when it was completed, he ceded to him twenty 

 villages in Galilee. In the Psalms, there are frequent allusions to the cedar: " The righteous 

 shall flourish like the palm tree : he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon." " The hills were covered 

 with its shadow, and the boughs thereof were like goodly cedars," &c. In the Book of Ezekiel is 

 the following striking passage : " Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with a shadowing 

 shroud of a high stature; and his top was among thick boughs. The waters made him great ; the 

 deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers 

 unto all the trees of the field, therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, 

 and his boughs were multiplied; and his branches became long, because of the multitude of 

 the waters where he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and 

 under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow 

 dwelt all great nations." (Ezekiel, xxxi. 3, 4, 5, and fi.) Many other passages might be quoted, 

 but these will suffice to show the very frequent allusions to the tree in Holy Writ. Some persons, 

 however, suppose that the cedar of the Bible is not that of Mount Lebanon ; as the wood of the 

 latter, though slightly fragrant, is not durable, and the tree cannot be called very lofty. It is possible 

 that the wood of old trees, growing in their native habitat, may be much harder, of finer grain, and 

 consequently less liable to corrupt, than the timber of young trees grown rapidly in this country ; and, 

 thougli there is no tree now existing on Mount Lebanon, or elsewhere, of very lofty stature, the 

 terms employed probably alluded rather to the grandeur and magnificence of the tree, than to its 

 actual height. Some writers have supposed that the cedar of the Bible was a kind of juniper ; others 

 that it was the Cedrus Deodar a ; and some, that it might be the Thuja articulata ; but the expres- 

 sion of the Psalmist, when, in allusion to the flourishing state of a people, he says, "they shall 

 spread their branches like the cedar," seems clearly to allude to the cedar of Lebanon. 



In profane history, many writers mention the usefulness and durability of the cedar. Diodorus 

 Siculus tells us that Sesostris the Great, king of Egypt, built a vessel of cedar, 280 cubits long, which 

 was covered with gold both within and without. (Lib. i. 2.) Theophrastus and Pliny say that the 

 Egyptians used the cedar instead of the pine, which did not grow in their country (Theoph., lib. v. 

 cap. 8. ; Plin., lib. xvi. cap. 40.) ; and they are said to have used the extract of cedar, mixed with 

 other drugs, to preserve their mummies. The largest cedar recorded in ancient history is one which 

 was employed to make a galley for King Demetrius, which had eleven ranks of oars; but this 

 tree, as it grew in the Isle of Cyprus, was probably the evergreen cypress : its length was ISO ft, and 

 its thickness 18 ft. The Emperor Caligula had constructed of the wood of the cedar what he called 

 Liburnian ships, of which the poops were enriched with precious stones, and the sails were of differ- 

 ent colours ; and which contained baths, and dining-rooms decorated with painting and carving. 

 (Suet, in Caligula, cap. xxxvii. ; Plin., lib. xiii. cap. 5.) The ancients considered the cedar as an 

 incorruptible kind of wood, which would last for ever; and for this reason they made with it their 

 temples, and the statues of their gods and kings. Virgil says, 



" Quin etiam veterum effigies ex ordine avorum 



Antiqua e cedro." Mneid. vii. 177. 



" Before the gates, a venerable band, 



In cedar carved, the Latian monarchs stand." Pitt's trans. 



According to Vitruvius (lib. iii. cap. 9.), the leaves of the papyrus, and other objects, were rubbed 

 with the resin of the cedar, an oil, or juice, which he calls cedria, in order to preserve them from 

 the worms; as, according to Pliny and others, it did the Egyptian mummies. (Plin., lib. xvi. 

 cap. 11. ; Dtod. Sic., lib. i. $ 2.) Vitruvius also mentions the Junlperus Oxycedrus, but clearly dis- 

 tinguishes it from the great cedar, which is supposed to be the cedar of Lebanon. The celebrated 

 temple of Diana at Ephesus, which was accounted one of the seven wonders of the world, whii-h 

 took 220 years in building, and which was burned down to the ground the night Alexander the 

 Great was born, was principally constructed of cedar. Pliny tells us of a temple of Apollo at Utica 

 (the well-known city of that name in Africa), in which was found cedar timber that, though nearly 

 2000 years old, was perfectly sound. At Saguntum, in Spain, continues Pliny, was a temple conse- 

 crated to Diana, which was built 200 years before the destruction of Troy ; and it contained a statue 



