The _lachrymæ_, gum, and other transudations, serving more for unguents and the chyrurgeon’s box, than for other medicaments, in which we find Pliny has little faith: But that which is more remarkable, is the virtue of the famous timber of this noble tree, being proof against all putrefaction of human and other bodies, above all other ingredients and compositions of embalmers; and that by a pretty contradiction, giving life as it were to the dead, and destroying the worms which are living; and as it does where any goods are kept in chests and presses of the wood, excepting woollen-cloth and furs, which ’tis observ’d they corrupt. In the mean time, touching the manner of these operations, as it concerns the preservation of the dead, see more where we speak of cypress, &c. The effects being ascrib’d to the extream bitterness of the resinous juices, whilst the odor is most grateful: The worthy Mr. Ray mentions the powder and sawdust of cedar to be one of the greatest secrets us’d by our pollinctors and mountebanks, who pretend to this embalming mystery; and indeed, that the dust and very chips are exitial to moths and worms, daily experience shews us; tho’ none in mine, than the dry’d leaves and stalks of _Marum-Syriacum_, familiarly planted in our gardens: What therefore the late traveller Dampier speaks of cedar, which he has seen worm-eaten, could neither be that of Libanus or Bermudas, but haply of Barbados, Jamaica, or some other species: note, that the cedar is of so dry a nature, that it does not well endure to be fastened with nails, from which it usually shrinks, and therefore pins of the same wood are better. Whatever other property this noble tree is deservedly famous for, it is said to yield an oyl, which above all other, best preserves the monuments of the learned, books and writings; whence _cedro dignus_ became one of the highest eulogies: But whether that of the ingenius poet, _Notandus minio, nec cedro charta notatur,_ refers not to the colour rather, which was usually red, and perhaps temper’d with this bitter oyl (as some conjecture) let our antiquaries determine: The horns and knobs at the ends of the rolling-staves, on which those sheets of parchment, &c. (before the invention of printing, and compacted covers now in use) as at present our maps and geographical charts (peeping out a little beyond the volume) were likely colour’d with this rutilant mixture.