THE CEDAR. 243 
of the gigantic deodar. The Brooang Pass was only acces- 
sible over a bed of snow; and on their descent from it on 
the northern side they measured a deodar cedar, and found 
it thirty-three feet in circumference, and from sixty feet to 
seventy feet high, without a branch. “On the mountains that 
enclose the valley of Kashmir, Moorcroft tells us, are immense 
forests of deodar, the timber of which is extensively used in 
their temples, mosques, and buildings in general. Such, says 
Moorcroft, is its durability, that in none of the 384 columns of 
the great mosque of Jana Musjid was there any vestige of 
decay either from exposure or insects, although they had been 
erected above a century and a half. Most of the bridges are of 
this timber ; and some pieces in one were found very little 
decayed, though they had been exposed to the action of water 
for 400 years.” —Quarterly Review, vol. cxi. No. 121, p. 118. 
In every particular the tree accords with the description 
given of the cedar in Holy Writ, but it has never been found 
on or near Mount Lebanon. Like many other species of 
conifers cultivated away from its native country, it has given 
rise to several varieties, none of which appear preferable to 
the common tree. Young plants from seed are sold at 1s. 
each, and plants more advanced, standing three to four feet 
high, sell at about £10 per 100. 
Cryptomeria Japonica (Don): The Japan Cedar.—This forms 
a beautiful evergreen tree with leaves five-rowed, without 
any footstalks, short pointed, very close together, incurved, 
bright green, and about three quarters of an inch in length. 
Branches horizontal, spreading, dividing alternately into 
numerous branchlets, thickly clothed with leaves. Male and 
female flowers on the same tree. Cones of the size of a hazel- 
nut. Scales numerous, of a brownish red colour. Seeds ripe 
in November. : 
Dr. Siebold, in his Flora Japonica, says it is a majestic tree, 
well deserving the name of cedar ; that it grows from 60 to 100 
feet high, and four or five feet in diameter, with a pyramidal 
head ; that it occurs in great abundance on the three great 
isles of Japan, and most probably on the smaller ones; that 
