CEDRUS DEODARA. 
15 
in this country. It will prefently be feen that thefe mifgivings were not without foundation. Although 
further corroborative experiments are ftill needed to put the matter beyond difpute, there appears little 
reafon to doubt, that although the Deodar muft always rank high for many excellent qualities, efpecially for 
beauty, durability, and general ufefulnefs, and much before the Cedar in regard to ftrength, it cannot be 
reckoned a firft-clafs timber. 
Properties and Ufes. —Of all the properties afcribed to this tree, there is none which is better authenti¬ 
cated than the durability of its timber. Kyanifed by the hand of nature, it defies wind and weather, refill¬ 
ing the foaking rains of the Himmalaya Mountains for ages. Rot under any afpedt is unknown to it. It 
would be tedious to accumulate evidence of the fad! that, throughout all the diftrids where it grows, it is 
largely employed in the conftrudtion of houfes, temples, and bridges; and very generally their buildings are 
conftrudfed on a plan which, although moft trying to timber, is well calculated to shew how capable the 
Deodar is of bearing all the viciffitudes of a moft variable climate. It is ufed not only as timber is 
commonly ufed, under cover, but for verandahs and roofs, as well as for the external framework of houfes. 
This framework is firft made, and then the interftices between the timbers are filled up either with hewn 
or unhewn ftones, fo that the wood is expofed as much as the ftone, as well to the influence of wet as to 
cold and drought. Moorcroft mentions that, in his time, a building erefited by the Emperor Akbar was 
taken down, and its timber, which was that of the Deodar, was found to be fo little impaired as to be fit 
to be employed in a houfe built by Rajah Shah. Its age, it was calculated, could not be lefs than 225 
years. In a building, which had a dome of excellent brick-and-mortar work, in which was buried the 
mother of a fovereign who began to reign in 1417, and died in 1473, pieces of Deodar were let into the 
walls, and their ends or fides were left on the fame plane with the brickwork. This wood, although fo 
much expofed to the influence of the weather, was neither crumbly nor worm-eaten, but was jagged, from 
the fofter part of the annular rings having been often wafhed by the rain. [Moorcroft's Journal\ quoted in 
Lambert’s Genus Pinus .) 
In the walls of old temples, now levelled nearly to their foundations, the timbers of the Deodar are to 
be feen, the furface bleached and ragged, but the body of the wood undecayed, and emitting its charadter- 
iftic odour as frefh as ever. In Cafhmere, the very tall pillars which fupport the roof of the Jumna Mufjid 
or Great Mofque, built by Aurungzebe in the days of our later Henrys, are formed of Deodar trees 
denuded of their bark. They exhibit not a crack or veftige of decay, either from expofure, rot, or infedts, 
and ftill fmell like pencil wood. 
Major Madden writes, “In the walls of temples in Kunawar, beams were pointed out to me brewing 
no figns of decay, except being a little charred and blackened on the furface by the adtion of the fun and 
weather ; and thefe temples were faid to have been built from 600 to 800 years ago. This is probably an 
exaggeration ; but Captain P. Gerard lived in a houfe, afcertained to be 200 years old, at Summerkot, 
between Rooroo and Bampore, the property of the Biffehur Rajah, in which the timber was as found 
as the day it was cut. It is in great requeft for the walls and roofs of temples and houfes, and for 
granaries, chefts, and other purpofes, where the ravages of infedts, &c., are apprehended.” 
The bridges in the countries of the Deodar are wooden ftrudtures, formed of Deodar timbers over¬ 
lapping each other until they meet in the centre; the other ends being fteadied by being funk into the 
banks and kept down by great weights. In Cafhmere the Deodar is alfo employed for making the piers 
on which the arches of the bridges ftand, as well as for building houfes and mofques. Pieces of its timber 
from the Tem-al-Kudal bridge (over the Jhelum) were found little decayed, although they had been 
expofed to the adtion of water for 400 years.— [Moorcroft's Travels. ) Dr Royle quotes a letter from 
Colonel Tait, C.B., in which he fays, “When in Cafhmere, I found the bridges over the river 
Jhelum, at the town of Terrie Nuggur (the old capital) built entirely of Deodar. Even the piers 
on which the arches reft are compofed of large blocks of this wood; and from the conftant rifing 
and falling of the river, they muft be expofed alternately to the adtion of water and to the burning 
f q 1 h . heat 
