In later times, some other vegetable productions have been found which can be employed instead of cork for the last-mentioned purpose. Among these is the wood of a tree common in South America, particularly in moist places, which is called there monbin or monbain, and by botanists Spondias lutea. This wood was brought to England in great abundance for that use. The spongy root of a North American tree, known by the name of nyssa, is also used for the same end, as are the roots of liquorice, which on that account is much cultivated in Sclavonia, and exported to other countries, and likewise the black poplar, for its bark is employed by the Cossacks[1008] as stoppers to their flasks, and the Æschynomene lagenaria, which is used instead of cork in Cochin-China[1009].
[That most useful substance, caoutchouc, now replaces cork for numerous purposes, and is superior to it in almost every respect, especially in its greater elasticity, in being subject to less injury from the action of many substances, and but slightly affected by moisture or dryness. It also keeps better, and is not much more expensive. The quantity of stoppers now manufactured by the Patent Caoutchouc Company is perfectly astonishing.]
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.