3rA PLmy's h'atfral history. [Book XYI. 
odour, as we have alrejdy^^ stated, when speaking of the 
perfumes. 
The cork is but a very small tree, and its acorn is of the 
very worst^^ quality, and rarely to be found as well : the 
bark^^ is its only useful product, being remarkably thick, and 
if removed it will grow again. When straitened out, it has 
been known to form planks as much as ten feet square. This 
substance is employed more particularly attached as a buoy 
to the ropes^^ of ships' anchors and the drag-nets of fishermen. 
It is employed also for the bungs of casks and as a material 
for the winter shoes^^ of females ; for which reason the Greeks 
not inappropriately call them^^ the bark of a tree." 
There are some writers who speak of it as the female of the 
holm oak; and in the countries where the holm does not 
grow, they substitute for it the wood of the cork-tree, more 
particularly in cartwrights' work, in the vicinity of Elis and 
Lacedsemon for instance. The cork-tree does not grow through- 
out the whole of Italy, and in no^"^ part whatever of Gaul. 
CHAP. 14. (9.) — TREES OF WHICH THE BARK IS USED. 
The bark also of the beech, the lime, the fir, and the pitch- 
tree is extensively used by the peasantry. Panniers and 
baskets are made of it, as also the large flat hampers which 
are employed for the carriage of corn and grapes : roofs of 
91 B. xii. c. 50. 
92 On the contrary, Fee says, the acorn of the Quercus suber is of a sweet ' 
and agreeable flavour, and is much sought as a food for pigs. The hams 
of Bayonne are said to owe their high reputation to the acorns of the cork- 
tree. 
93 The word " cork" is clearly derived from the Latin cortex," " bark " 
See Beckmann's History of Inventions, Y. i. p. 320, et seq ., Bohns Edition^ 
for a very interesting account of this tree. 
9^ This passage, the meaning of which is so obvious, is discussed at some 
length by Beckniann, Vol. i. pp. 321, 322. 
95 It is still employed for making soles which are impervious to the wet. 
96 It is doubtful whether this name was given to the shoes, or the fe- 
males who wore them, and we have therefore preserved the doubt, in the 
ambiguous " them." Beckmann also discusses this passage, p, 321. He 
informs lis, p. 322, that the E,oman ladies who wished to appear taller than 
they really were, were in the habit of putting plenty of cork under their 
soles. 
At the present day, it grows in the greatest abundance in France, the 
Landes more particularly. 
