414 
PLINY's natural HISTOllT. 
[Book XVI. 
which are employed for making tables, the trees are split into 
planks lengthwise, and the parts are then selected along which 
the fibres run, and properly rounded ; for the wood would be 
too brittle to use if it were cut in segments crosswise.®^ In 
the beech, the grain of the fibrous part runs crosswise hence 
it is that the ancients held in such high esteem all vessels made 
with the wood of it. Manius Curius made oath, on one occa- 
sion, that he had not touched an article of all the spoil except 
a single oil cruet^^ of beech, to use for sacrificing. "Wood 
is always put lengthwise into the water to season, as that part 
which was nearest the root will sink to a greater^^ depth than, 
the other. In some wood there is fibre, without veins, and merely 
consisting of filaments slightly knit together : wood of this 
nature is remarkably fissile. Other wood, again, is more easily 
broken across than split, such as the wood of those trees that 
have no fibre, the olive and the vine, for instance : on the other 
hand, in the fig-tree, the whole of the body consists of flesh,^^ 
The holm-oak, the cornel, the robur, the cytisus, the mulberry, 
the ebony, the lotus, and the other trees which we have 
mentioned^^ as being destitute of marrow, consist entirely of 
bone.^^ All these woods are of a blackish colour, with the 
exception of the cornel, of which glossy yellow hunting- spears 
are made, marked with incisions for their further embellish- 
ment. In the cedar, the juniper, and the larch, the wood 
is red. 
(39.) In Greece the female larch furnishes a wood^*^ which 
is known as aegis, and is just the colour of honey. This wood 
has been found to be proof against decay, and forms the pannels 
used by painters, being never known to gape or split ; the 
portion thus employed is that which lies nearest to the pith. In 
the fir-tree this part is called leuson" by the Greeks. In the 
cedar, too, the hardest part is the wood that lies nearest to the 
53 And at an angle with the grain or fibre of the wood. 
8^ And at right angles. In the Dicotyledons, the disposition of the fibres 
is longitudinal and transversal. 
85 Guttum. 
86 For the simple reason, because the part near the root is of greater 
diameter. 
8''' Soft ligneous layers. 88 jj^ 72 of this Book. 
89 Hard wood — such as we know generally as "heart;" "heart of 
oak" for instance. 
so Probably that of the ligneous layers near the pith or sap. 
