BOOK XVI. Lxxiii. 185-187 



grainings in the fibre run crosswise, and consequently 

 even vessels made of beechwood were highly valued 

 in old days : Manius Curius declared on oath that he 

 had touched nothing of the booty taken in a battle 

 except a flask made of beech-wood, to use in offering 

 sacrifices. 



A log of timber floats more or less horizontally, Timbn- 

 each part of it sinking deeper the nearer it was to ]^Z7ruded. 

 the root. Some timbers have fibre without veins, 

 consisting of thin filaments merely ; these are the 

 easiest to spHt. Others have no fibre, and break 

 more quickly than they spUt, for instance ohves and 

 vines. But on the other hand in the fig-tree the body 

 consists entirely of flesh, while the holm-oak, cornel, 

 hard oak, cytisus, mulberry, ebony, lotus and the 

 trees that we have stated to be without marrow, § 183. 

 consist entirely of bone. The timber of all of these 

 is of a blackish colour except the cornel, hunting 

 spears made of which are bright yellow when notched 

 with incisions for the purpose of decoration. The 

 cedar, the larch and the juniper are red. The 

 female larch contains wood called in Greek aegis, 

 of the colour of honey ; this wood ^* when made 

 into panels for pictures has been found to last for 

 ever without being spHt by any cracks ; it is the part 

 of the trunk nearest to the pith ; in the fir-tree the 

 Greeks call this 'lusson.'^ The hardest part of 

 the cedar also is the part nearest the pith — as 

 the bones are in the body — provided the shme'' 

 has been scraped ofF. It is reported '^ that the 

 inner part of the elder also is remarkably firm, 

 and some people prefer hunting spears made of 

 it to all others, as it consists entirely of skin and 

 bones. 



509 



