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.