(4S8) 
and the adjacent Counties, whereby they find by long 
Experience the Trunks of their Trees fo dried and bard- 
ned, that the fappy part in a manner becomes as firm and 
durable, as the Heart it felf 
Which way of barking and felling of Timber, tho it 
were unknown to the Antients (as perhaps it is to all 
the World befides thofe few Counties) yet they feem not 
unacquainted with the rationaility of the Pra&ice : For 
Seneca obferves the Timber molt expofed to the cold 
Winds, to be moft ftrong and folid, and that therefore 
Chiron made Achilles* s Spear of a Mountain Tree. Homer 
alio tells us that the Spear of Agamemnon was <fyjgy^gpk 
fyffi&H made of a Treefo expofed, for which Didymm 
gives the reaion rrei^S bpvi\Kc? (fays he) nh&ov yjuvxfyfjfyjcc, 
S&vfep» &pea } for that being continually Wer-.ther beaten, 
they become harder and tougher. And Pliny fays ex- 
prefly as much for the Sun, as they for the Wind, viz. 
That the Wood of Trees expofed to the Sun-fhine, is 
the xnofc faft and durable, for which reafon 'tis too 
that the Great Vitruvivs prefers the Timber on the South 
fide the Appennine^ (where it winds about and inclofes 
Tufcany and Campania, and ftrongly refle&s the conftant 
Hears of the Sun upon it, as it were from a Concave 5) 
incomparably before that, which growsxipon the North 
fide of she fame Hill, in the Ibady moift Grounds: of 
which his opinion he renders us this reafon, for that the 
Sun does not only lick up the fuperfluous nioiftures of 
the Earth, whence the Trees are fupplied in fuch fhady 
places with too great a quantity, but in great meafure 
exhales the remaining Juices (after the production of 
Leaves and Fruits) out of the Jrees themlelves, render- 
ing xhe'Timber of them the more clofe, fubftantial and 
durable 5 which certainly it would do alfo much more 
effectually, if the Bark were taken of in the Spring of 
the Year, as is accuftomed in Stafford/hire, where the 
People 
