15. The timber of this wood was of infinite esteem with the Ancients: That lasting bridge built over the Euphrates by Semiramis, was made of this material; and it is reported, Plato chose it to write his laws in, before brass it self, for the diuturnity of the matter: It is certain, that it never rifts or cleaves, but with great violence; and the bitterness of its juice, preserves it from all worms and putrifaction. To this day those of Crete and Malta make use of it for their buildings; because they have it in plenty, and there is nothing out-lasts it, or can be more beautiful, especially, than the root of the wilder sort, incomparable for its crisped undulations. Divers learned persons have conceiv’d the gopher mention’d in Holy Writ, _Gen._ 6. 14. (and of which the Ark was built) to have been no other than this Κυπάρισσος, _cupar_, or _cuper_, by the easie mutation of letters; Aben Ezra names it a light wood apt to swim; so does David Kimchi; which rather seems to agree with fir or pine, and such as the Greeks call ξύλα τετράγωνα quadrangular trees, about which criticks have made a deal of stir: But Isa. Vossius (on the LXX. C. II.) has sufficiently made it out, that the timber of that denomination was of those sort of trees whose branches breaking out just opposite to one another at right angles, make it appear to have been fir, or some sort of wood whose arms grew in a uniform manner; but surely this is not to be universally taken; since we find yew, and divers other trees, brittle, heavy, and unapt for shipping, do often put forth in that order: The same learned author will have gopher to signifie only pitch, or bitumen, as much as if the text had said, make an ark of resinous timber. The Chaldee paraphrase translates it cedar, or as Junius and Tremellius, _cedrelaten_, a species between fir and cedar: Munster contends for the pine, and divers able divines endeavour to prove it cypress; and besides, ’tis known, that in Crete they employ’d it for the same use in the largest contignations, and did formerly build ships of it: And Epiphanius Hæres, l. 1. tells us, some reliques of that ark (_circa campos sennaar_) lasted even to his days, and was judged to have been of cypress. Some indeed suppose that gopher was the name of a place, _à cupressis_, as Elon _à quercubus_; and might possibly be that which Strabo calls _Cupressetum_, near Adiabene in Assyria: But for the reason of its long lasting, coffins (as noted) for the dead were made of it, and thence it first became to be _diti sacra_; and the valves, or doors of the Ephesine temple were likewise of it, as we observ’d but now, were those of St. Peters at Rome: Works of cypress-wood, _permanent ad diuturnitatem_, says Vitruvius l. 2. And the poet .............._perpetuâ nunquam moritura cupresso._ Mart. E. 6. 6.