i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 21 







4. It is chiefly used for beams, and other pur- 

 poses for which solidity is requisite. 



5. It gives out so much resin, that the quality 

 of the wood is often impaired by the quantity 

 emitted, even the warmth of the sun being suffi- 

 cient to cause an exudation ; whereas the same 

 process is even serviceable in the case of the 

 Picea. 



6. Lastly, it is inferior in the quality of its 

 timber to the last-named species. 



Now of ihePinmes above enumerated as exist- 

 ing in southern Europe, the Abies pectinata is the 

 one which seems best to accord with the above 

 description, especially when we add, that Pliny q 

 describes it as having its leaves indented like the 

 teeth of a comb, which may be regarded as ex- 

 pressive of one of the generic distinctions between 

 the Abies and Pinus of modern botanists. 



But we must not expect from this Author, or 

 indeed from any of those of antiquity, the same 

 precision as is demanded from modern Botanists 

 in such matters. Probably the two lines in Virgil's 

 7th Eclogue, v. 65, 



" Fraxinus in silvis pulcherrima, Pinus in hortis, 

 Populus in fluviis, Abies in montibus altis," 



express the amount of discrimination which the 

 Romans exercised in such matters ; so that, not 

 only the Abies pectinata, but any other resinous tree, 

 with narrow pointed leaves, growing in mountainous 



i Lib. xvi. c. 38. 



