There being no material more obedient and ready to bend for such works.
In Holland they receive their best mast out of Norway, and even as far as Moscovy, which are best esteemed, (as consisting of long fibers, without knots) but deal-boards from the first; and though fir rots quickly in salt-water, it does not so soon perish in fresh; nor do they yet refuse it in merchant-ships, especially the upper-parts of them, because of its lightness: The true pine was ever highly commended by the Ancients for naval architecture, as not so easily decaying; and we read that Trajan caused vessels to be built both of the true, and spurious kind, well pitch’d, and over-laid with lead, which perhaps might hint our modern sheathing with that metal at present. Fir is exceeding smooth to polish on, and therefore does well under gilding-work, and takes black equal with the pear-tree: Both fir, and especially pine, succeed well in carving, as for capitals, festoons, nay, statues, especially being gilded, because of the easiness of the grain, to work and take the tool every way; and he that shall examine it nearly, will find that famous image of the B. Virgin at Loretto, (reported to be carved by the hands of St. Luke) to be made of fir, as the grain easily discovers it: The torulus (as Vitruvius terms it) and heart of deal, kept dry, rejecting the albumen and white, is everlasting; nor does there any wood so well agree with the glew, as it, or is so easie to be wrought: It is also excellent for beams, and other timber-work in houses, being both light, and exceedingly strong, and therefore of very good use for bars, and bolts of doors, as well as for doors themselves, and for the beams of coaches, a board of an inch and half thick, will carry the body of a coach with great ease, by reason of a natural spring which it has, not easily violated. You shall find, that of old they made carts and other carriages of it; and for piles to superstruct on in boggy grounds; most of Venice, and Amsterdam is built upon them, with so excessive charge, as some report, the foundations of their houses cost as much, as what is erected on them; there being driven in no fewer than 13659 great masts of this timber, under the new Stadt-house of Amsterdam. For scaffolding also there is none comparable to it; and I am sure we find it an extraordinary saver of oak, where it may be had at reasonable price. I will not complain what an incredible mass of ready money, is yearly exported into the northern countries for this sole commodity, which might all be saved were we industrious at home, or could have them out of Virginia, there being no country in the whole world stor’d with better; besides, another sort of wood which they call cypress, much exceeding either fir or pine for this purpose; being as tough and springy as yew, and bending to admiration; it is also lighter than either, and everlasting in wet or dry; so as I much wonder, that we enquire no more after it: In a word, not only here and there an house, but whole towns, and great cities are, and have been built of fir only; nor that alone in the north, as Mosco, &c. where the very streets are pav’d with it, (the bodies of the trees lying prostrate one by one in manner of a raft) but the renowned city of Constantinople; and nearer home Tholose in France, was within little more than an hundred years, most of fir, which is now wholly marble and brick, after 800 houses had been burnt, as it often chances at Constantinople; but where no accident even of this devouring nature, will at all move them to re-edifie with more lasting materials. To conclude with the uses of fir, we have most of our pot-ashes of this wood, together with torch, or funebral-staves; nay, and of old, spears of it, if we may credit Virgil’s Amazonian combat,
........................ She prest
A long fir-spear through his exposed breast.[242:1]
Lastly, the very chips, or shavings of deal-boards, are of other use than to kindle fires alone: Thomas Bartholinus in his Medicina Danorum Dissert. 7, &c. where he disclaims the use of hops in beer, (as pernicious and malignant, and from several instances how apt it is to produce and usher in infections, nay, plagues, &c.) would substitute in its place, the shavings of deal-boards, as he affirms, to give a grateful odor to the drink; and how soveraign those resinous-woods, the tops of fir, and pines, are against the scorbut, gravel in the kidneys, &c. we generally find: It is in the same chapter, that he commends also wormwood, marrubium, chamelæagnum, sage, tamarisc, and almost any thing, rather than hops. The bark of the pine heals ulcers; and the inner rind cut small, contus’d, and boil’d in store of water, is an excellent remedy for burns and scalds, washing the sore with the decoction, and applying the softned bark: It is also soveraign against frozen and benumb’d limbs: The distill’d water of the green cones takes away the wrinkles of the face, dipping cloaths therein, and laying them on it becomes a cosmetic not to be despis’d. The pine, or picea buried in the earth never decay: From the latter transudes a very bright and pellucid gum; hence we have likewise rosin; also of the pine are made boxes and barrels for dry goods; yea, and it is cloven into (scandulæ) shingles for the covering of houses in some places; also hoops for wine-vessels, especially of the easily flexible wild-pine; not to forget the kernels (this tree being always furnish’d with cones, some ripe, others green) of such admirable use in emulsions; and for tooth-pickers, even the very leaves are commended: In sum, they are plantations which exceedingly improve the air, by their odoriferous and balsamical emissions and, for ornament, create a perpetual Spring where they are plentifully propagated. And if it could be proved that the almugim-trees, recorded[243:1] 1 Reg. 11, 12. (whereof pillars for that famous temple, and the royal palace, harps, and psalteries, &c. were made) were of this sort of wood (as some doubt not to assert) we should esteem it at another rate; yet we know Josephus affirms they were a kind of pine-tree, though somewhat resembling the fig-tree wood to appearance, as of a most lustrous candor. In the 2 Chron. 2, 8. there is mention of almug-trees to grow in Lebanon; and if so, methinks it should rather be (as Buxtorf thinks) a kind of cedar; (yet we find fir also in the same period) for we have seen a whiter sort of it, even very white as well as red; though some affirm it to be but the sap of it (so our cabinet-makers call it) I say, there were both fir and pine-trees also growing upon those mountains, and the learned Meibomius, (in that curious treatise of his De Fabrica Triremium) shews that there were such trees brought out of India, or Ophir. In the mean time, Mr. Purchas informs us, that Dr. Dee writ a laborious treatise almost wholly of this subject, (but I could never have the good hap to see it) wherein, as commissioner for Solomon’s timber, and like a learned architect and planter, he has summon’d a jury of twelve sorts of trees; namely, 1. the fir, 2. box, 3. cedar, 4. cypress, 5. ebony, 6. ash, 7. juniper, 8. larch, 9. olive, 10. pine, 11. oak, and 12. sandal-trees, to examine which of them were this almugim, and at last seems to concur with Josephus, in favour of pine or fir; who possibly, from some antient record, or fragment of the wood it self, might learn something of it; and ’tis believ’d, that it was some material both odoriferous to the scent, and beautiful to the eye, and of fittest temper to refract sounds; besides its serviceableness for building; all which properties are in the best sort of pine or thyina, as Pliny calls it; or perhaps some other rare wood, of which the Eastern Indies are doubtless the best provided; and yet I find, that those vast beams which sustain’d the roof of St. Peter’s church at Rome, laid (as reported) by Constantine the Great, were made of the pitch-tree, and have lasted from anno 336, down to our days, above 1300 years.
13. But now whilst I am reciting the uses of these beneficial trees,[245:1] Mr. Winthorp presents the Royal Society with the process of making the tar and pitch in New-England, which we thus abbreviate. Tar is made out of that sort of pine-tree, from which naturally turpentine extilleth; and which at its first flowing out, is liquid and clear; but being hardned by the air, either on the tree, or where-ever it falls, is not much unlike the Burgundy pitch; and we call them pitch-pines out of which this gummy substance transudes: They grow upon the most barren plains, on rocks also, and hills rising amongst those plains, where several are found blown down, and have lain so many ages, as that the whole bodies, branches, and roots of the trees being perished, some certain knots only of the boughs have been left remaining intire, (these knots are that part where the bough is joyn’d to the body of the tree) lying at the same distance and posture, as they grew upon the tree for its whole length. The bodies of some of these trees are not corrupted through age, but quite consum’d, and reduc’d to ashes, by the annual burnings of the Indians, when they set their grounds on fire; which yet has, it seems, no power over these hard knots, beyond a black scorching; although being laid on heaps, they are apt enough to burn. It is of these knots they make their tar in New-England, and the country adjacent, whilst they are well impregnated with that terebinthine, and resinous matter, which like a balsom, preserves them so long from putrefaction. The rest of the tree does indeed contain the like terebinthine sap, as appears (upon any slight incision of bark on the stem, or boughs) by a small crystalline pearl which will sweat out; but this, for being more watery and undigested, by reason of the porosity of the wood, which exposes it to the impressions of the air and wet, renders the tree more obnoxious; especially, if it lie prostrate with the bark on, which is a receptacle for a certain intercutaneous worm, that accelerates its decay. They are the knots then alone, which the tar-makers amass in heaps, carrying them in carts to some convenient place not far off, where finding clay or loam fit for their turn, they lay an hearth of such ordinary stone as they have at hand: This, they build to such an height from the level of the ground, that a vessel may stand a little lower than the hearth, to receive the tar as it runs out: But first, the hearth is made wide, according to the quantity of knots to be set at once, and that with a very smooth floor of clay, yet somewhat descending, or dripping from the extream parts to the middle, and thence towards one of the sides, where a gullet is left for the tar to run out at. The hearth thus finish’d, they pile the knots one upon another, after the very same manner as our colliers do their wood for charcoal; and of a height proportionable to the breadth of the hearth; and then cover them over with a coat of loam, or clay, (which is best) or in defect of those, with the best and most tenacious earth the place will afford; leaving only a small spiracle at the top, whereat to put the fire in; and making some little holes round about at several heights, for the admission of so much air, as is requisite to keep it burning, and to regulate the fire, by opening and stopping them at pleasure. The process is almost the same with that of making charcoal, as will appear in due place; for, when it is well on fire, that middle hole is also stopp’d, and the rest of the registers so govern’d, as the knots may keep burning, and not be suffocated with too much smoak; whilst all being now through-heated, the tar runs down to the hearth, together with some of the more watry sap, which hasting from all parts towards the middle, is convey’d by the foremention’d gutter, into the barrel or vessel placed to receive it: Thus, the whole art of tar-making is no other, than a kind of rude distillation per descensum, and might therefore be as well done in furnaces of large capacity, were it worth the expence. When the tar is now all melted out, and run, they stop up all the vents very close; and afterwards find the knots made into excellent charcoal, preferr’d by the smiths before any other whatsoever, which is made of wood; and nothing so apt to burn out when their blast ceaseth; neither do they sparkle in the fire, as many other sorts of coal do; so as, in defect of sea-coal, they make choice of this, as best for their use, and give greater prices for it. Of these knots likewise do the planters split out small slivers, about the thickness of one’s finger, or somewhat thinner, which serve them to burn instead of candles; giving a very good light. This they call candle-wood, and it is in much use both in New-England, Virginia, and amongst the Dutch planters in their villages; but for that it is something offensive, by reason of the much fuliginous smoak which comes from it, they commonly burn it in the chimney-corner, upon a flat stone or iron; except, occasionally, they carry a single stick in their hand, as there is need of light to go about the house. It must not be conceiv’d, by what we have mention’d in the former description of the knots, that they are only to be separated from the bodies of the trees by devouring time, or that they are the only materials, out of which tar can be extracted: For there are in these tracts, millions of trees which abound with the same sort of knots, and full of turpentine fit to make tar: But the labour of felling these trees, and of cutting out their knots, would far exceed the value of the tar; especially, in countries where work-men are so very dear: But those knots above-mention’d, are provided to hand, without any other labour, than the gathering only. There are sometimes found of those sort of pine-trees, the lowest part of whose stems towards the root is as full of turpentine, as the knots; and of these also may tar be made: But such trees being rarely found, are commonly preserved to split into candle-wood; because they will be easily riven out into any lengths, and scantlings desir’d, much better than the knots. There be, who pretend an art of as fully impregnating the body of any living pine-tree, for six or eight foot high; and some have reported that such an art is practis’d in Norway: But upon several experiments, by girdling the tree (as they call it) and cutting some of the bark round, and a little into the wood of the tree, six or eight foot distant from the ground, it has yet never succeeded; whether the just season of the year were not observ’d, or what else omitted, were worth the disquisition; if at least there be any such secret amongst the Norwegians, Swedes, or any other nation. Of tar, by boiling it to a sufficient height, is pitch made: And in some places where rosin is plentiful, a fit proportion of that, may be dissolv’d in the tar whilst it is boiling, and this mixture is soonest converted to pitch; but it is of somewhat a differing kind from that which is made of tar only, without other composition. There is a way which some ship-carpenters in those countries have us’d, to bring their tar into pitch for any sudden use; by making the tar so very hot in an iron-kettle, that it will easily take fire, which when blazing, and set in an airy place, they let burn so long, till, by taking out some small quantity for trial, being cold, it appears of a sufficient consistence: Then, by covering the kettle close, the fire is extinguish’d, and the pitch is made without more ceremony. There is a process of making rosin also, out of the same knots, by splitting them out into thin pieces, and then boiling them in water, which will educe all the resinous matter, and gather it into a body, which (when cold) will harden into pure rosin. It is moreover to be understood, that the fir, and most coniferous trees, yield the same concretes, lachrymæ, turpentines, and there is a fir which exstills a gum not unlike the balm of Gilead, and a sort of tus; rosins, hard, naval stone, liquid pitch, and tar for remedies against the cough, arthritic and pulmonic affections; are well known, and the chyrurgion uses them in plaisters also; and in a word, for mechanic and other innumerable uses; and from the burning fuliginous vapour of these, especially the rosin, we have our lamp, and printers black, &c. I am perswaded the pine, pitch and fir trees in Scotland, might yield His Majesty plenty of excellent tar, were some industrious person employ’d about the work; so as I wonder it has been so long neglected. But there is another process not much unlike the former, which is given us by the present archbishop of Samos, Joseph Georgirenes, in his description of that, and other islands of the Ægæan.
Their way of making pitch (says he) is thus: They take sapines, that is, that part of the fir, so far as it hath no knots; and shaving away the extream parts, leave only that which is nearest to the middle, and the pith: That which remains, they call dadi (from the old Greek word Δᾶδες, whence the Latin, taeda): These they split into small pieces, and laying them on a furnace, put fire to the upper part, till they are all burnt, the liquor in the mean time running from the wood, and let out from the bottom of the furnace, into a hole made in the ground, where it continues like oyl: Then they put fire to’t, and stir it about till it thicken, and has a consistence: After this, putting out the fire, they cast chalk upon it, and draw it out with a vessel, and lay it in little places cut out of the ground, where it receives both its form, and a firmer body for easie transportation: Thus far the archbishop; but it is not so instructive and methodical as what we have describ’d above.
Other processes for the extracting of these substances, may be seen in Mr. Ray’s Hist. Plant., already mentioned, lib. xxix. cap. 1. And as to pitch and tar, how they make it near Marselles, in France, from the pines growing about that city, see Philos. Trans. n. 213. p. 291. an. 1696, very well worthy the transcribing, if what is mentioned in this chapter were at all defective.
I had in the former editions of Sylva, plac’d the larix among the trees which shed their leaves in Winter (as indeed does this) but not before there is an almost immediate supply of fresh; and may therefore, both for its similitude, stature, and productions, challenge rank among the coniferous: We raise it of seeds, and grows spontaneously in Stiria, Carinthia, and 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 Cæsar 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 seems to excel for beams, doors, windows, and masts of ships, resists the worm: Being driven into the ground, it is almost petrified, and will support an incredible weight; which (and for its property of long resisting fire) makes Vitruvius wish, they had greater plenty of it at Rome to make goists of, where the Forum of Augustus was (it seems) built of it, and divers bridges by Tiberius; for that being attempted with fire, it is long in taking hold, growing only black without; and the timber of it is so exceedingly transparent, that cabanes being made of the thin boards, when in the dark night they have lighted candles in them, people, who are at a distance without doors, would imagine the whole room to be on fire, which is pretty odd, considering there is no material so (as they pretend) unapt to kindle. The larix bears polishing excellently well, and the turners abroad much desire it: Vitruvius says ’tis so ponderous, that it will sink in the water: It also makes everlasting spouts, pent-houses, and featheridge, which needs neither pitch or painting to preserve them; and so excellent pales, posts, rails, pedaments and props for vines, &c. to which add the palats on which our painters separate and blend their colours, and were (till the use of canvas and bed-tike came) the tables on which the great Raphael, and most famous artists of the last age, eterniz’d their skill.
[227:1] De causis, l. 1. cap. 5.