WESTERN YEW. 
87 
The Yew of Europe, indigenous to Britain, and as far 
north as Norway and Sweden, usually affects rocky and 
mountainous countries. It is very robust, grows slowly, 
and is attacked by no insect. In the sombre valleys of 
the lower Alps, the Yew is seen in all its natural majesty, 
among steep rocks in forests as ancient as the world, and 
planted by the hand of nature. 
The wood of the Yew is considered one of the most 
valuable in Europe, and for beauty not inferior to the finest 
and most curious sorts of India. Both the root and trunk 
furnish, at their ramifications, pieces of wood beautifully 
veined and marked, which are highly prized for furniture. 
It has in a high degree all the good qualities which we find 
so seldom united, such as durability, solidity, elasticity, 
hardness and fineness of grain, even when exposed either 
to the air or water. The sap-wood or outer layer, is of a 
shining white, the inner or perfect-wood of a fine red 
colour, and both take a polish as perfect as marble. It is 
wrought with facility, and is suitable for every thing which 
requires strength and durability, such as wheels, axle-trees, 
screws, the teeth of mill-wheels, and for water-pipes. It 
makes beautiful furniture, vases, &c. Inlaid work, sculp- 
ture, and ancient coats of arms of this wood, may be seen 
in the old churches and halls of Europe, in a state of 
perfect preservation, and free from worms after a lapse of 
more than 500 years. The sap-wood though of as pure a 
white as that of the Holly, is easily died of a jet black, 
when it puts on the appearance of ebony. A single tree 
is sometimes worth £100. The bows most esteemed among 
the ancients, were made of this wood, whose perpetual 
elasticity rendered it unrivalled for this important use. 
The aborigines of Oregon are also now in the habit of 
selecting the Yew of their forests for the same purpose. 
It is the heaviest of any other wood in Europe, a cubic 
foot weighing 61 pounds 7 ounces French weight. 
