ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, V. III. 5–7
reversing the natural position: (by wood 'from the foliage' joiners mean the upper wood). For, when these are fitted the one into the other, each counteracts[1] the other, as they naturally tend in opposite directions: whereas, if the wood were set[2] as it grows,[3] all the parts[4] would give where the strain came.[5]
(They do not finish off the doors at once; but, when they have put them together, stand them up, and then finish them off the next year, or sometimes the next year but one,[6] if they are doing specially good work. For in summer, as the wood dries, the work comes apart, but it closes in winter. The reason is that the open fleshy texture of the wood of the silver-fir[7] drinks in the air, which is full of moisture.)
[8]Palm-wood is light easily worked and soft like cork-oak, but is superior to that wood, as it is tough, while the other is brittle. Wherefore men now make their images of palm-wood and have given up the wood of cork-oak. However the fibres do not run throughout the wood, nor do they run to a good length, nor are they all set symmetrically, but run in every direction. The wood dries while it is being planed and sawn.
[9]Thyon (thyine wood), which some call thya, grows near the temple of Zeus Ammon and in the district of Cyrene. In appearance the tree is like the cypress alike in its branches, its leaves, its stem, and its fruit; or rather it is like a wild cypress.[10] There
- ↑ κωλύει: Sch. adds θάτερον from G.
- ↑ ἔκειτο conj. W.; ἐκεῖνο Ald.
- ↑ i.e. the 'upper' wood in the upper position.
- ↑ πάντων MSS. (?); πάντως conj. W.
- ↑ i.e. there would be no resistance. ἦν after ἂν add. Sch.
- ↑ cf. Plin. 16. 215.
- ↑ Of which the door itself is made.
- ↑ Plin. 16. 211.
- ↑ Plin. 13. 10–102.
- ↑ κυπάριττος ἀγρία conj. Sch.; κυπάρισσον ἀγρίαν M Ald.
