108 BALM OF GILEAD. 
The ivood of the horse-chesnut tree is white, soft, 
and of little value. It however serves occasionally for 
water-pipes, for mill-timber, and turners' ware. And 
if it be dipped into scalding oil, and well pitched, it 
becomes extremely durable. In some parts of the 
Continent the bark of this tree is used in the cure of 
intermittent and other fevers ; and some writers have 
been of opinion that it might, with advantage, be sub- 
stituted in several complaints for Peruvian bark. 
This tree was first brought into Europe, from the 
northern parts of Asia, about the year 1550; and its 
growth is so rapid, that trees, raised from nuts, have, in 
twelve or fourteen years, attained nearly their full di- 
mensions. It is further remarkable, in the growth of 
the horse-chesnut tree, that the whole of the spring 
shoots are said to be completed in little more than three 
weeks from the first opening of the buds. 
CLASS VIII OCTANDRIA. 
MONOGYNIA. 
118. BALSAM, or BALM OF GILEAD, is the dried juice 
of a low tree or shrub (Amyris gileadensis), which grows in seve* 
ral parts of Abyssinia and Syria. 
This tree has spreading crooked branches, small bright green 
leaves, growing in threes, and small white flowers on separate foot" 
stalks. The petals are four in number, and the fruit is a small 
egg- shaped berry, containing a smooth nut. 
By the inhabitants of Syria and Egypt, this balsam, 
as it appears from the authority of the Scriptures, was 
in great esteem in the highest periods of antiquity* 
We are informed by Josephus, the Jewish historian, 
that the balsam of Gilead was one of the trees which 
was given by the Queen of Saba to King Solomon* 
