nd other Alpine Countries: The change of the colour of the
old leaf, made an ignorant gardiner of mine erradicate what I had
brought up with much care, as dead; let this therefore be a warning: The
leaves are thin, pretty long and bristly; the cones small, grow
irregular, as do the branches, like the cypress, a very beautiful tree,
the pondrous branches bending a little, which makes it differ from the
Libanus cedar, to which some would have it ally'd, nor are any found in
Syria. Of the deep wounded bark, exsudes the purest of our
shop-turpentine, (at least as reputed) as also the drug _agaric_: That
it flourishes with us, a tree of good stature (not long since to be seen
about Chelmsford in Essex) sufficiently reproaches our not cultivating
so useful a material for many purposes, where lasting and substantial
timber is required: For we read of beams of no less than 120 foot in
length, made out of this goodly tree, which is of so strange a
composition, that 'twill hardly burn; whence Mantuan, _et robusta larix
igni impenetrabile lignum_: for so Caesar found it in a castle he
besieg'd, built of it; (the story is recited at large by Vitruvius, l.
2. c. 9.) but see what Philander says upon the place, on his own
experience: Yet the coals thereof were held far better than any other,
for the melting of iron, and the lock-smith; and to say the truth, we
find they burn it frequently as common fuel in the Valtoline, if at
least it be the true _larix_, which they now call _melere_. There is
abundance of this larch timber in the buildings at Venice, especially
about the palaces in Piazza San Marco, where I remember Scamozzi says he
himself us'd much of it, and infinitely commends it. Nor did they only
use it in houses, but in naval architecture also: The ship mention'd by
Witsen (a late Dutch writer of that useful art) to have been found not
long since in the Numidian Sea, twelve fathoms under water, being
chiefly built of this timber, and cypress, both reduc'd to that
induration and hardness, as greatly to resist the fire, and the sharpest
tool; nor was any thing perished of it, though it had lain above a
thousand and four hundred years submerg'd: The decks were cover'd with
linnen, and plates of lead, fixed with nails guilt, and the intire ship
(which contain'd thirty foot in length) so stanch, as not one drop of
water had soaked into any room. Tiberius we find built that famous
bridge to his _Naumachia_ with this wood, and it seem