Mr. Loudon, in his Arboretum (p. 2417), de scribes it thus : The wood of the cedar is of a reddish white, light and spongy, easily worked, but very apt to shrink and warp, and by no means durable.' But when the tree is grown on moun taMs, the annual layers of wood are much nar rower, and the fibre much finer than when it is grown on plains ; so much so that a piece of cedar wood brought from Mount Lebanon by Dr. Pari sel, in 1829, and which he had made into a small piece of furniture, presented a surface compact, agreeably veined, and variously shaded, and which, on the whole, may be considered handsome (Hist. deg Cedre, p. 43). But Dr. Pococke, who brought away a piece of one of the large cedars which had been blown down by the wind, says that the wood does not differ in appearance from white deal, and that it does not appear to be harder. Vareunes de Feuille considers it as the lightest of the resinous woods, and he adds that it contains very little resin ; that its grain is coarse, and that he thinks the wood can neither be so strong nor so durable as it has the reputation of being. Mr. Louden says (lac. cit.) that a table which Sir J. Banks had made out of the Hillingdon cedar was soft, with out scent (except that of common deal), and pos sessed little variety or veining ; and the same re marks will apply to a table which Mr. L. had made from a plank which is referred to as having been kindly presented to him by J. Gostling, Esq. of Whitton Park. Dr. Lindley (Gardeners' Chro nicle, vol. i. p. 699), calls it ' the worthless, though magnificent cedar of Mount Lebanon.' A corre spondent, however, at p. 733, says, ' Mr. Wilcox of Warwick, a most ingenious and skilful carver (in his works little inferior to the celebrated Gib bons), has now in his rooms some specimens of furniture made of cedar of Lebanon, ornamented with carved work, in flowers, leaves, etc. etc., in the best taste, and in sharpness and colour so similar to box-wood that any common observer would mistake it to be such.' In reply to this Dr. Lindley adds, ' The fact last mentioned is the first that has come to our knowledge of the cedar of Lebanon having been found of important use.' He is of opinion that some of the cedar-trees sent by Hiram, king of Tyre, may have been obtained from Mount Atlas, and may have been the produce of the above Above or Al Arz—the Callitris quad rivalvis—which no doubt furnished the ancients with one of their most valued woods [TxvitiE]. This is hard, durable, and fragrant, and commonly used in religious buildings in the East.' Though we have seen both temples and palaces built en tirely with one kind of cedar (that of the Cedrus Deodara), we think it more probable that, as the timber had to be brought from a distance, where all the kinds of cedar grew, the common pine-tree and the cedar of Lebanon would both furnish some of the timber required for the building of the Temple, together with juniper cedar. The name arz, as we have seen, is applied by the Arabs to all three ; and they would give all the qualities of timber that could be required. We have shewn that the 'Axis of the ancients was most probably the wood of a juniper. Celsius was of opinion that the eres indicated the Pinus sylvestris or Scotch pine, which yields the red and yellow deals of Norway, and which is likewise found on Mount Lebanon. This opinion seems to be confirmed by Ezek. xxvii. 5, ' They have made all thy ship boards of fir-trees of Senir, they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee.' For it is not probable that any other tree than the common pine would be taken for masts, when this was pro curable, since even in the present day Pallas assures us that the pine of Livonia and Lithuania differs not from the Pinus sylvestris ; masts, he says, are not made of any peculiar species, as foreigners, and more especially the French, think ; but they are all of the Pinus sylvestris ' (Loudon, Arboret. p. 2158).
Though Celsius appears to us to be quite right in concluding that eres, in some of the passages of Scripture, refers to the pine-tree, yet it seems equally clear that there are other passages to which this tree will not answer. It certainly appears im probable that a tree so remarkable for the magnifi cence of its appearance as the cedar of Lebanon should not have been noticed in the Sacred Scrip tures ; and this would be the case if we applied eres exclusively to the pine, and baron's to the cypress. If we consider some of the remaining passages of Scripture, we cannot fail to perceive that they forcibly apply to the cedar of Lebanon, and to the cedar of Lebanon only. Thus, in Ps. xcii. 12, it is said, The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree, and spread abroad like a cedar of Lebanon.' It has been well remarked that the flourishing head of the palm and the spreading abroad of the cedar are equally characteristic.' But the prophet Ezekiel (ch. xxxi.) is justly ad duced as giving the most magnificent and, at the same time, the most graphic description of this celebrated tree : (ver. 3), Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature ; and his top was among the thick boughs.' (ver. 5),
Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long, because of the mul titude of waters :' (ver. 6), All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young.' In this description, Mr. Gilpin has well observed, the principal characteristics of the cedar are marked; first, the multiplicity and length of its branches. Few trees divide so many fair branches from the main stem, or spread over so large a compass of ground. His boughs are multiplied,' as Ezekiel says, and his branches become long,' which David calls spreading abroad. His very boughs are equal to the stem of a fir or a chestnut. The second characteristic is what Ezekiel, with great beauty and aptness, calls his shadowing shroud. No tree in the forest is more remarkable than the cedar for its close-woven leafy canopy. Ezekiel's cedar is marked as a tree of full and perfect growth, from the circumstance of its top being among the thick boughs.' The other principal passages in which the cedar is mentioned are r Kings iv. 33 ; z Kings xix. 23 ; Job xl. 17 ; Ps. xxix. 5 ; lxxx. io ; XCil. 12 civ. 16 ; cxlviii. 9 ; Cant. i. 17 ; v. 15 viii. 9 ; Is. ii. r3 ; ix. to ; xiv. 8 ; xxxvii. 24 ; xli. 19 ; xliv. 14 ; Jer. xxii. 7, 14, 23 ; Ezek, xvii. 3, 22, 23 ; Amos ii. 9 ; Zeph. ii. 14 ; Zech. xi. I, 2 ; and in the Apocry pha, 1 Esdras iv. 48 ; v. 55 ; Ecclus. xxiv. 13 ; 1. 12 ; but it would occupy too much space to adduce further illustrations from them of what indeed is the usually admitted opinion.
It is however necessary, before concluding, to give some account of this celebrated tree, as noticed by travellers in the East, all of whom make a pilgrimage to its native sites. The cedar of Lebanon is well known to be a widely-spreading tree, generally from 5o to So feet high, and when standing singly, often covering a space with its branches, the diameter of which is much greater titan its height. The horizontal branches, when the tree is exposed on all sides, are very large in proportion to the trunk, being disposed in distinct layers or stages, and the distance to which they extend diminishes as they approach the top, where they form a pyramidal head, broad in proportion to its height. The branchlets are disposed in a flat fan-like manner on the branches. The leaves, produced in tufts, are straight, about one inch long, slender, nearly cylindrical, tapering to a point, and are on short footstalks. The male cat kins are single, solitary, of a reddish hue, about two inches long, terminal, and turning upwards. The female catkins are short, erect, roundish, and rather oval ; they change after fecundation into oval, oblong cones, which, when they approach maturity, become from 2f inches to 5 inches long. Every part of the cone abounds with resin, which sometimes exudes from between the scales. Be lon, who travelled in Syria about 1550, found the cedars about 28 in number, in a valley on the sides of the mountains. Rauwolf, who visited the cedars in 1574, could tell no more but 24, that stood round about in a circle ; and two others, the branches whereof are quite decayed from age.' De la Roque, in 16SS, found but 2o. Manndrell, in 1696, found them reduced to 16 ; and Dr. Po cocke, who visited Syria 1744 and 1745, discovered only 15. One of these, that had the soundest body, though not the largest, measured 24 feet in circumference, and another, with a sort of triple body, and of a triangular figure, measured 12 feet on each side. The wood,' he says, does not differ from white deal in appearance, nor does it seem to be harder. It has a fine smell, but is not so fragrant as the juniper of America, which is commonly called cedar, and it also falls short of it in beauty. I took a piece of the wood from a great tree that was blown down by the wind, and left there to rot. There are is large ones stand ing.' Mr. Buckingham, in 1825, says, Leaving Biskerry on our right, we ascended for an hour over light snow, until we came to the Am-el Libinien, or the cedars of Lebanon.' M. Laure, who, in company with the Prince de Joinville visited the cedars in rS36, calls them El-Herz/. M. Lamar tine, in 1832, says, These trees diminish in every succeeding age. Travellers formerly counted 3o or 40 ;. more recently, 17 ; more recently still only 12. There are now but 7. These, however, from their size and general appearance, may be fairly presumed to have existed in Biblical times. Around these ancient witnesses of ages long since past, there still remains a little grove of yellow cedars, appearing to me to form a group of from 400 to Soo trees or shrubs. Every year, in the month of June, the inhabitants of Beschierai, of Eden, of Kandbin, and the other neighbouring valleys and villages, climb up to these cedars, and celebrate mass at their feet. How many prayers have re sounded under these branches, and what more beautiful canopy for worship can exist !'—J. F. R.
ER' (vnp ; Sept. 'An5e2s; Al. 'Mats). A son of Gad (Gen. xlvi. 16).