Volume 1

Sylva, or a discourse of forest-trees, and the propagation of timber in His Majesty's dominions ... Together with an historical account of the sacredness and use of standing groves / By John Evelyn ... with notes by A. Hunter... To which is added the Terra. A philosophical discourse of earth. With the editor's last corrections and a short memoir of him.

  • Evelyn, John, 1620-1706.
Date:
1812
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sylva, or a discourse of forest-trees, and the propagation of timber in His Majesty's dominions ... Together with an historical account of the sacredness and use of standing groves / By John Evelyn ... with notes by A. Hunter... To which is added the Terra. A philosophical discourse of earth. With the editor's last corrections and a short memoir of him. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Lastly, The very chips or shavings of deal boards are of other use than CM. XXII. to kindle fires alone: Thomas Bartholinus, in his Medicina Danorum, Dissert, vii. 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, to give a grateful odour to the drink ; and how sovereign 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, Chamelseagnum, Sage, Tamarisk, and almost any thing rather than hops. The bark of the Pine heals ulcers; and the inner rind cut small, contused, and boiled in store of water, is an excellent remedy for burns and scalds, washing the sore with the decoction, and applying the softened bark.— It is also sovereign against frozen and benumbed limbs. The distilled water of the green cones takes away the wrinkles of the face; cloths dipped therein, and laid upon the skin, becomes a cosmetic not to be despised. The Pine or Picea, buried in the earth, never decays. From the latter transudes a very bright and pellucid gum ; hence we have like- wise rosin. Also of the Pine are made boxes and barrels for dry goods; and it is cloven into shingles (scandulae) for the covering of houses in some places. Hoops for wine-vessels, especially of the flexible wild Pine, are made of it; not to forget the kernels, (this tree being always furnished 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 balsamic emissions, and for ornament create a perpetual spring where they are plentifully propagated. And if it could be proved that the Almug-trees *, recorded 1 Reg. x. 12. (whereof pillars for that , * vn,ere ° v 1 the lxx (viz. famous temple and the royal palace, harps, and psalteries, See. were made,) 3 Kings x. were of tins sort of wood, as some doubt not to assert, we should esteem ‘2') ,calls u . * Ge.7Tihty.YiTa. it at another rate; yet we know Josephus affirms they were a kind of non dedotata; Pine-tree, though somewhat resembling the Fig-tree wood to appearance, °^]at l'sna as of a most lustrous candor. In 2 Chron. ii. 8. there is mention of Almug-trees growing 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, as our cabinet-makers call it: I say there were both Fir and Pine-trees growing upon tlio^c 3 A 2