SHITTIM WOOD is the wood of the Shittah tree, or Acacia Seyal. This spiny tree especially abounded in the peninsula of Sinai and around the Dead Sea, but was also found in various parts of Syria, Arabia, and Africa. In the present day the shittah trees are very few and small, but in the time of Moses there were forests of them, and of a size sufficient to form long and wide planks. It is, as Jerome says, "a very strong wood of incredible lightness and beauty," and, he adds, "it is not subject to decay." This corresponds to the translation of the Hebrew term for shittim wood in the Septuagint, which is "incorruptible wood." Though light, it is hard, strong, and durable. As a proof of this, the Ark, and other furniture of the Tabernacle, which were made of shittim wood, must have lasted for a period of some 500 years before all traces of them were lost. Dean Stanley remarks that the plural word shittim was given to the wood of the shittah tree from the tangled thickets into which the stems of the trees expand. ALMUG.--The wood of the Pterocarpus Santalinus, a large tree of the order "Leguminosœ."--The wood is very hard, has a reddish color, and takes a fine polish. It is a native of India and Ceylon, whence it was in Solomon's time conveyed to Ophir, on the east coast of Africa, and from Ophir to Palestine; "and the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in great plenty of almug trees, and the king made of the almug trees pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house, harps also and psalteries for singers." 1 _Kings_ x. 11, 12. Almug is not the same as Algum, which grew on Lebanon with the cedar and fir. 2 _Chron._ ii. 8. THYINE WOOD.--The wood of the Thuja Articulata, now named Callitris Quadrivalvis, a tree of the cypress sub-order of coniferæ, from 20 to 30 feet high. It is a native of Algiers and the Atlas range of North Africa. The wood is dark colored, hard, and fragrant, taking a fine polish; it yields an odoriferous resin called Sanderach, which was much used by the Romans for incense in the worship of their gods. Thyine takes its name from "to burn incense." It was much prized by the ancient Greeks and Romans, not only because it was considered sacred but also on account of the beauty of the wood for various ornamental purposes. Pliny speaks of the mania of his countrymen for ornaments made of this wood, and tells us that when Roman ladies were upbraided by their husbands for their extravagance in pearls, they retorted upon them for their excessive fondness for tables made of thyine wood. So great a rage was there for ornamental cabinet work in ancient Rome that Cicero had a table made of it that cost £9,000. Ornaments made of this wood can be seen in the Museum at Kew, presented by the late Jerome Napoleon. The ceiling and floor of the celebrated Mosque of Cordova are of thyine wood, and it is also referred to in the Bible. TAPESTRY USED FOR FRENCH FURNITURE.