OP FOREST-TREES. 



35 



12. But to resume the disquisition, whether it be truly so proper for CHAP. I. 

 shipping, is controverted ; though we find in Cassiodorus Var. Op. 1. v, '^-•"v-"*^ 

 epist. xvi. Theodoris writing to the Prsetorio-prasfectus that he had 

 caused store of it to be provided for that purpose ; and Plato, who, we 

 told you, made laws and titles to be engraven on, nominates it, inter 

 arbores vau7rr;7o~? utiles, lib. iv. Leg. and so does Diodorus, lib. xix. — 

 And, as travellers observe, there is no other sort of timber more fit for 

 shipping, though others think it too heavy. Aristobulus affirms, that the 

 Assyrians made all their vessels of it ; and indeed the Romans praised it, 

 when pitched with Arabian pitch. And so frequent was this tree about 

 those parts of Assyria, where the ark is conjectured to have been built, 

 that those vast armadas which Alexander the Great caused to be 

 equipped and set out from Babylon, consisted only of Cypress, as we 

 learn out of Arrian, in Alex. lib. vii. Strabo, lib. xvi. Plutarch. Sympos. 

 lib. i. prob. c. ii, Paulus Colomesius, in his Kei/jiyfAta Literaria, cap. xxiv. 

 perstringes the most learned Isa. Vossius, that, in his Vindicise pro LXX. 

 Interp. he affirms Cypress not fit for ships, as being none of the zzlpdyww.. 

 But, besides what we have produced, Fuller, Bochartus, Lilius Gyraldus 

 lib. de Navig. cap. iv, and divers others, sufficiently evince it, and that 

 the vessel built by Trajan was of that material, lasting uncorrupt near 

 1400 years, when it was afterwards found in a certain lake ; if it were 

 not rather, as I suspect, that which iEneas Silvius reports to have been 

 discovered in his time, lying under water in the Numidian lake, crusted 

 over with a certain ferruginous mixture of earth and scales, as if it had 

 been of iron ; but, as we have elsewhere noted, it was pronounced to be 

 Larix, and not Cypress, employed by Tiberius. Finally not to forget 

 even the very chips of this precious wood, which give that flavour to 

 muscadines and other rich wines, I commend it for the improvement 

 of the air, and a specific for the lungs, as sending forth most sweet and 

 aromatic emissions, whenever it is either clipped or handled ; and the 

 chips or cones being burnt, extinguish moths, and expel gnats and flies, 

 &c. not omitting the gum which it yields, not much inferior to the Tere- 

 binthine or Lentise. 



We have often mentioned the virtue of these odoriferous woods for the 

 improvement of the air, upon which I take occasion here to add what I 

 have, some years since, already* published concerning the melioration • Fumifugimn. 



