FENCING AND CARPENTERS' WOODS. 97 



Australian Blackwood (Actinia melandxylori) are peculiarly fitted 

 for the hubs ; Ash and Eucalyptus crebra and E. goniocalyx for 

 spokes ; Hickory (various species of Hicdiia) for axle-trees and 

 shafts; Poplar, American White-wood (Liriodendron tulipifera), 

 Birch and Maple (Acer barbdtum) for panels; the dense Pyen- 

 gadu (Xylia dolabrifdrmis) and Padouk (Pterocdrpus indicus) of 

 Burma, for gun-carriages or the frames of railway-waggons, and the 

 Bastard Peppermint of New South Wales (Tristdnia suaveolens) for 

 somewhat similar purposes, in which tough hard wood is needed. 

 About 1750, Satin wood, upon which Cipriani and Angelica 

 Kauffmann executed their paintings, became fashionable for 

 coach-panels ; whilst for the humbler purposes of wheelbarrows 

 Willow is useful from its freedom from splintering. 



Furniture. An immense variety of woods has been employed 

 in the making of furniture, susceptibility to polish, beauty of 

 colour or grain, and durability being their chief requisites, together 

 with freedom from shrinkage, whilst they are variously employed 

 either planed, carved, turned, or bent. Thus some wood known 

 as " Cedar " seems to have been largely used in ancient Assyria 

 and Egypt, forming the beams of the temple of Apollo at Utica, 

 said by Pliny to have been sound 1 200 years after their erection, 

 employed alike in Solomon's temple, in Greek sculpture, and in 

 carpentry, as for the chest in which Cypselus of Corinth is said to 

 have been concealed about 550 B.C. As Vitruvius speaks of that 

 of Crete, Africa, and Syria as the best, it is probable that then, as 

 now, the wood of several species was confused under one name, 

 probably the Lebanon Cedar (Cedrus libani), that of Mount Atlas 

 (C. atldntica) and the 'Arar (Tetradinis articuldta) of Morocco. 

 This last sweet-scented wood, known also as Atlas Cypress, was 

 the much- vaunted " Citrus " or " Citron " Wood of the Romans 

 and probably the "Thyme Wood" of the Apocalypse. The roof of 

 the cathedral at Cordova, originally a mosque, is built of it, it being 

 there known as "Alerce." The true Cypress (Cuprhsus semper- 

 vtrens) was, no doubt, largely used, not only, as is related, for 

 Alexander the Great's Babylonian fleet or Semiramis' bridge over 

 the Euphrates, but owing to its durability and resistance to moth, 



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