CEDRUS LIBANI 
37 
of an old tree. There is no appearance of its ever having lost its top. We observe incidentally that the 
inaptitude of the climate for the Cedar at Duncrivie does not apply to the Deodar, which grows as rapidly 
there as anywhere else. 
The supposed slow growth of the Cedar on Lebanon was threatened with a contradiction by some 
beams of wood found by Layard in the ruins of Nineveh, one of which he sent home to the British 
Museum, where it is now deposited. He says: 
“Standing one day on a distant part of the mound, I smelt the sweet smell of burning Cedar. The Arab workmen excavating in the small 
temple had dug out a beam, and the weather being cold, had at once made a fire to warm themselves. The wood was Cedar; probably one of 
the very beams mentioned in the inscription as brought from the forests of Lebanon by the king who built the edifice. After a lapse of 3000 
years it had retained its original fragrance. Many other such beams were discovered, and the greater part of the rubbish in which the ruin was 
buried consisted of charcoal of the same wood. It is likely that the whole superstructure, as well as the roof and the floor of the building, like 
those of the temple and palace of Solomon, were of this precious material” (“ Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon,” 1853, p. 357). 
Now, the specimen in the British Museum has the annual rings by no means close, but at regular 
and tolerably wide distances; the rate of growth being nearly a line each year—the breadth of i o spaces 
each containing io rings selected as a fair average, being successively 13 lines, 11, 8, 9, 9^, 8, gi, 7, 6, 7I. 
If this were Lebanon timber, we should, therefore, be compelled to admit that the growth had not always 
been slow in Lebanon, or at least not so in other forests from which the beam in question might have 
been taken. There are, however, objections to receiving the beams in question as timbers from Lebanon. 
One is, that the late Robert Brown, by a microscopical examination of the intimate structure of the 
timber, pronounced it to be the wood of the Yew, not of the Cedar; and on the strength of his deter¬ 
mination it has been so received by botanists. This we do not think a good objection, for we have 
doubts of the soundness of Mr. Brown’s determination. The block of timber has every resemblance to 
that of the Cedar, and little or none to that of the Yew. It is nearly of the colour of the Cedar, and not 
so dark or so rich a brown as the heart-wood of the Yew. The texture is open and soft like that of the 
Deodar or English grown Cedar, and not so close and firm as that of the Yew. Its annual rings are 
scarcely more consistent with the usual growth of the Yew (which are very close, one we have just counted 
giving 90 rings in 26 lines) than they are with those of the Cedars growing on Mount Lebanon; and, on 
examining a radial section of the timber under the microscope, we have found our suspicions confirmed, 
and it almost certainly proved to be, at any rate, not a Yew. There is a simple and marked distinction 
between the structure and timber of the true Conifers and of the Yews. A cross section shews no 
difference; but a longitudinal section made in the radial direction shews an additional, or apparently 
additional, structure in the Yews beyond what appears in the Conifers. The Yew, in addition to the 
discs, has a half uncoiled spiral vessel, like an elastic spring, between the walls of each tube. No such 
spiral vessels are to be seen in a section of the Nineveh Cedar. When placed in Canada balsam, 
examined without this precautionary preparation, there is to be seen a slight cross line or scratch here 
and there, simulating the crossing of two spiral vessels; and this, we imagine, is what has deceived Robert 
Brown. No doubt if the spiral vessels or traces of them could be seen at all in any part, that must settle 
the question, as they are never seen in coniferous wood; but the cross lines in question occur very rarely, 
and only here and there, instead of being everywhere present as in the Yew, and may probably be due to 
the disintegration of the timber from the long keeping. At any rate, under the best methods of exami¬ 
nation, no spiral vessels are to be seen. Another objection to its being Yew is the fragrance spoken of 
by Mr. Layard, which he smelt when the beam was burning, which is not a property of the Yew, while it 
is of the Cedar. 
We are driven, therefore, to admit that the timber is not the Yew; and next, that there are strong 
grounds for believing it to be Cedar. But it does not follow that it is Lebanon Cedar. It may be 
Deodar, which, it is not disputed, has a more rapid growth than the Lebanon tree. Indeed, it seems 
almost impossible that it could be anything but the Deodar. Lebanon is 300 or 400 miles from Nineveh 
as the crow flies, and the route by land is impassable to carriages or any means by which heavy logs of 
timber 
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