FOOTNOTES
[972] What is here observed in regard to the pores of cork has been stated, in general, by Lucretius, vi. 5984.
[973] Duhamel, Traité des Arbres et Arbustes, Tozzetti, Viaggi, iv. p. 278.
[974] [In MacCulloch’s Dictionary the word every is changed into for, and the author then proceeds to observe, that “This erroneous statement having been copied into the article Cork in Rees’ Cyclopædia, has thence been transplanted into a number of other works!” The mistake, however, is wrongly attributed to Beckmann.]
[975] Histor. Plantar. lib. iii. cap. 16. He repeats the same thing lib. iv. cap. 18, where he remarks as an exception, that the cork-tree does not die after it has lost its bark, but becomes more vigorous. In the southern parts of France the cork-trees are barked every eight, nine or ten years.
[976] Lib. iii. cap. 4. This difficulty the commentators have endeavoured to remove by reading here φελλόδρυς instead of the two words φελλὸς and δρῦς which are separated; and indeed φελλόδρυς occurs in other parts of the same work among the evergreens, lib. i. cap. 15.
[977] Clusius in Rar. Plantar. Histor. lib. i. cap. 14, describes this tree as he found it without leaves in the month of April in the Pyrenees near Bayonne. Theophrastus, p. 234, says, “The cork-tree, φελλὸς, which drops its leaves γίνεται ἐν Τυῤῥηνίᾳ:” but the Aldine manuscript and that of Basle have Πυῤῥηνίᾳ. The latter reading is condemned by Robert Constant and others: but though the cork-tree is indeed indigenous in Tyrrhenia or Etruria, I see no reason why Πυῤῥηνίᾳ should not be retained, as it is equally certain that the tree grows in the Pyrenees, and that it there loses its leaves according to the observation of Clusius. If, on the other hand, we read Τυῤῥηνίᾳ, this is opposed by the experience of Theophrastus; for in Italy, as well as in France and Spain, the tree keeps its leaves the whole winter through. Stapel therefore has preferred the word Πυῤῥηνίᾳ. Labat, who saw the tree both in the Pyrenees and in Italy, says that in the former it drops its leaves in winter, and in the latter preserves them. According to Jaussin (Mémoires sur les évènemens, arrivés dans l’Isle de Corse. Lausanne, 1759, 8vo, ii. p. 398) it is in Corsica an evergreen; and Carter (Reise von Gibraltar nach Malaga, Leipsic, 1799, 8vo, p. 190) says that the case is the same in Spain, but he expressly adds that beyond the Alps it loses its leaves in autumn.
[978] In his Gardener’s Dictionary. Bauhin, in his Pinax, p. 424, mentions this species particularly.
[979] Hist. Plant. lib. i. cap. 15.
[980] Lib. xvi. cap. 21.
[981] De Re Rustica, i. cap. 7.
[982] Lib. xvi. cap. 8.
[983] The botanists of the seventeenth century, who paid more attention to the names of the ancients than those of the present time, say that the cork-tree is in Greek called also ἴψος, or ἰψὸς, which word is not to be found in Ernesti’s dictionary. I have found it only once in Theophrastus, Histor. Plantar. lib. iii. cap. 6, where those plants are named which blow late. Because Pliny, lib. xvi. cap. 25, says tardissimo germine suber; ἰpψὸς is considered to be the same as φελλός. Hesychius however says that ἰψὸς in some authors signifies ivy.
[984] Our German word Kork, as well as the substance itself, came to us from Spain, where the latter is called chorcha de alcornoque. It is, without doubt, originally derived from cortex of the Latins, who gave that appellation to cork without any addition. Horace says, Od. iii. 9, “Tu levior cortice;” and Pliny tells us, “Non infacete Græci (suberem) corticis arborem appellant.” These last words are quoted by C. Stephanus in his Prædium Rusticum, p. 578, and Ruellius De Natura Stirpium, p. 174, and again p. 256, as if the Greeks called the women, on account of their cork soles, of which I shall speak hereafter, cortices arborum. This gives me reason to conjecture a different reading in Pliny, and indeed I find in the same edition already quoted, the words cortices arborum. This variation ought to have been remarked by Hardouin.
[985] Plin. p. 7.
[986] Mosella, 246.
[987] Linnæi Flora Suec. p. 358. Gmelin’s Reise durch Russland, i. p. 138. It is a mistake in Duroi, Harbkescher Baumzucht, ii. p. 141, that ropes for fishing-nets are prepared from this bark.
[988] Parkinson’s Voyage to the South Seas, 1773, 4to.
[989] De Militia Navali Veterum. Upsaliæ, 1654, 4to, lib. ii. cap. 5.
[990] In Stephens’s Thesaurus he says, “Usus ancoralibus navium; int. sustinendis, et minuendo pondere ancorarum.”
[991] Pausanias, viii. 12, p. 623, where he speaks of the different kinds of oak in Arcadia. When any one had the misfortune to fall into the sea, the cork affixed to the anchor, ancoralia, was thrown overboard, in order that the person in danger might catch hold of it. This we learn from the account of Lucian (Epist. i. 1, p. 7), when two men, one of whom had fallen into the sea and another who jumped after him to afford him assistance, were both saved by these means.
[992] And to conceal contraband goods in them, of which I have seen instances during my travels.
[993] Xenophon De Tuenda Re Famil. and Clemens Alexand. lib. iii. Pæda.
[994] Plutarchus in Vita Camilli.
[995] De Re Rustica, cap. 120.
[996] Lib. iii. od. 8, 10.
[997] Before cork came to be used for this purpose pitching was more necessary, and therefore mention of pitch occurs so often in the Roman writers on agriculture. When the farmer, says Virgil (Georg. i. 275), has brought his productions to the city, he carries back articles of every kind, such, for example, as pitch. On such occasions our poets would have mentioned articles entirely different. Strabo (lib. v. p. 334) also extols Italy, because together with wine it had a sufficiency of pitch, so that the price of wine was not rendered dearer.
[998] As proofs of this may everywhere be found, it is hardly worth while to quote them. Columella, xii. 12, teaches the manner of preparing cement for stopping up wine-casks. The earthen wine-jars found at Pompeii appear to have had oil poured over them, and to have had no other care bestowed upon them. In Italy, even at present, large flasks have no stoppers, but are filled up with oil.
[999] Alexand. ab Alex. Dier. Gen. v. 21, p. 302. When the Romans went out to the chase, they carried with them some wine in a laguncula.—Plin. Epist. i. 6. p. 22. I do not know however that these flasks were of glass; all those I have seen were made of clay or wood. See Pompa De Instrum. Fundi, cap. 17, in the end of Gesner’s edition of Scriptores Rei Rust. ii. p. 1187.
[1000] Le Grand d’Aussy, Histoire de la Vie Privée des François, ii. p. 367.
[1001] Petron. Sat. cap. xxxiv. p. 86. In the paintings of Herculaneum I find many wide-mouthed pitchers, with handles, like decanters, but no figure that resembles our flasks.
[1002] Aringhi Roma Subterranea. Romæ, 1651. fol. i. p. 502, where may be seen an account of a flask with a round body and a very long neck.
[1003] Glossarium Novum, i. p. 1182: “le dit Jaquet print un conouffle de voirre, ou il avoit du vin ... et de fait en but.”
[1004] Grand d’Aussy quotes from Chronique Scandaleuse de Louis XI. “Des bouteilles de cuyr.” That word however is of German extraction, though we have received it back from the French somewhat changed, like many other German things. It is evidently derived from butte, botte, buta, buticula, buticella, which occur in the middle ages. See C. G. Schwarzii Exercitat. de Butigulariis. Altorfii, 1723, 4to, p. 5.
[1005] See his Observations on Petronius, p. 259.
[1006] De Natura Stirpium, p. 256.
[1007] Dendrologia, p. 194.
[1008] Gmelin’s Reise durch Russland, i. p. 138. Pallas, Flora Russica, i. p. 66.
[1009] Loureiro Flora Cochin-Chin. p. 447.