THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. 



471 



and the success has been far greater, and far 

 more uniform, than in the case of any other tree 

 not a native of the country. It appears that the 

 quality of larch timber does not depend so much 

 upon the maturity of the tree, and the slowness 

 of its growth, as that of the pine, — as a fishing 

 boat built of larch, only forty years old, has been 

 found to last three times as long as one of the 

 best Norway pine. It is not so buoyant, how- 

 ever, nor so elastic ; and as it does not dry so 

 completely as pine, boards of it are more apt to 

 warp. It is, however, much more tough and 

 compact ; and what are very valuable properties, 

 it approaches nearly to being proof, not only 

 against water, but against fire. If the external 

 timbers, and the principal beams of houses, were 

 made of larch, fires would not only be less fre- 

 quent, but they would be far less destructive ; 

 for before a larch beam be even completely 

 charred on the surface, a beam of pine, or of dry 

 oak, win be in a blaze beyond the ordinary means 

 of extinguishment. Larch, however, is heavier 

 to transport and elevate, and also much harder 

 to work, than pine ; and as these circumstances 

 are all against the profits of the builder, they 

 probably prevent the introduction of this most 

 safe and durable timber. The Venetian houses 

 constructed of it show no symptoms of decay ; 

 and the complete preservation of some of the 

 finest paintings of the great masters of Italy is, 

 in some respects, owing to the panels of larch on 

 which they are executed. 



The objects for which larch timber seems pre- 

 ferable to every other, are chiefly these : — gates, 

 palings, posts of all kinds that are inserted either 

 in the earth or in water, wooden buildings, 

 many agricultural implements, cottage furniture, 

 bridges and gangways, carriages for transporting 

 stones and all hard and rough materials, barrows 

 for builders and road makers, lighters, fenders, 

 and embanking piles, lock and dock gates for 

 canals and harbours, coal and lime waggons, ves- 

 sels for carrying lime, pit-props, and hop poles 

 of the smaller thinnings. For all these purposes, 

 and many minor ones, larch would come con- 

 siderably cheaper than any timber now in use ; 

 and would, in the average of them, last at least 

 thrice as long, — ^the saving to the public would 

 thus be immense ; and the lands upon which an 

 abundant supply might be raised in every county, 

 are at present lying idle. 



There is a variety of the larch with red, and 

 another with white flowers ; one with grayish 

 bark, called the Russian larch, and one with pen- 

 dulous branches. The black and red are con- 

 sidered either distinct species, or sub-species. 

 The timber of both is said to be harder than that 

 of the common white larch ; but these trees have 

 never yet had a fair trial in this country. The red 

 larch trees in the Athol estates do not contain 

 one-tliird as many cubic feet of timber as the 



white larch of the same age. The wood is so heavy 

 that it will scarcely swim in water. Such is the 

 rapidity of growth of the white larch, that on 

 the estates of the Duke of Athol, at an elevation 

 of 1600 feet, in the course of eighty years, a tree 

 has arrived at the size to produce 300 cubic feet 

 of timber of such durability, as to be fit for any 

 use. According to Sang, the superiority of the 

 larch over the Scotch pine is, that it brings 

 double the price at least per measurable foot; 

 that it will arrive at a useful timber size in one- 

 half, or a third of the time which the pine in 

 general requires ; and, above all, that the wood 

 of the larch, at forty or fifty years old, if in a 

 suitable soil and climate, is in every respect supe- 

 rior to that of the pine at one hundred years old. 

 The chief objections to the timber of the larch 

 are its liability to warp and twist ; but this is 

 said to be obviated by barking the trees in spring 

 whOe growing, and not cutting them down till 

 the following autumn, or even for a year after- 

 wards ; this is also said to prevent the timber 

 from being attacked by dry-rot. 



The bark of the larch is more than half as 

 valuable as that of the oak in tannin, and the 

 tree yields turpentine by incision. The best tim- 

 ber is that which has grown on elevated, cold, 

 and bare soils. 



The Black Larch of America (I. pendulaj,, 

 called by the Indians tamarache, or hachmatack, 

 is a beautiful tree, resembling the European spe- 

 cies, both in appearance and in the excellent 

 quality of the wood and bark. 



The Cedar op Lebanon (I. cedrus). This 

 celebrated tree is a native of the coldest parts of 

 the mountains of Libanus, Ama- 

 '"■ nus, and Taurus ; but it is not 



now to be found in those situ- 

 ations in great numbers. Maun- 

 drell, in his journey from Alep- 

 po to Jerusalem, in 1696, could 

 reckon only sixteen large trees, 

 although there were many small 

 The Codar ones. One of the largest was 

 twelve yards in the spread of its 

 boughs. The forest of Lebanon never seems to 

 have recovered the havoc made by Solomon's 

 forty score thousand hewers, so that we have 

 now probably more cedars in England than there 

 are in Palestine. 



This tree would, if the rapidity of its growth 

 were at aU correspondent with its other qualities, 

 be the most valuable in the forest. Its resistance 

 to absolute wear is not indeed equal to that of 

 the oak; but it is so bitter, that no insect what- 

 ever will touch it, and it seems to be proof against 

 Time himself. We are told that the timber in 

 the temple of Apollo at Utica was found unde- 

 cayed after the lapse of two thousand years; and 

 that a beam in the oratory of Diana, at Sagun- 

 tum in Spain, was carried from Zante, two 



