Vitruvius “cedars” were growing in Crete, Africa and Syria. Pliny says that their wood was everlasting, and therefore images of the gods were made of it; he makes mention also of the oil of cedar, or cedrium, distilled from the wood, and used by the ancients for preserving their books from moths and damp; papyri anointed or rubbed with cedrium were on this account called ced ati libri. Drawers of cedar or chips of the wood are now employed to protect furs and woollen stuffs from injury by moths. Cedar-wood, however, is said to be injurious to natural history objects, and to instruments placed in cabinets made of it, as the resinous matter of the wood becomes deposited upon them. Cedria, or cedar resin, is a substance similar to mastic, that flows from incisions in the tree; and cedar manna is a sweet exudation from its branches.
The genus Cedrus contains two other species closely allied to C. Libani—Cedrus Deodara, the deodar, or “god tree” of the Himalayas, and Cedrus atlantica, of the Atlas range, North Africa. The deodar forms forests on the mountains of Afghanistan, North Beluchistan and the north-west Himalayas, flourishing in all the higher mountains from Nepal up to Kashmir, at an elevation of from 5500 to 12,000 ft.; on the peaks to the northern side of the Boorung Pass it grows to a height of 60 to 70 ft. before branching. The wood is close-grained, long-fibred, perfumed and highly resinous, and resists the action of water. The foliage is of a paler green, the leaves are slender and longer, and the twigs are thinner than those of C. Libani. The tree is employed for a variety of useful purposes, especially in building. It is now much cultivated in England as an ornamental plant. C. atlantica, the Atlas cedar, has shorter and denser leaves than C. Libani; the leaves are glaucous, sometimes of a silvery whiteness, and the cones smaller than in the other two forms; its wood also is hard, and more rapid in growth than is that of the ordinary cedar. It is found at an altitude above the sea of from 4000 to 6000 ft.
The name cedar is applied to a variety of trees, including species of several genera of Conifers, Juniperus, Thuja, Libocedrus and Cupressus. Thuja gigantea of western North America is known in the United States as White (or Yellow) cedar, and the same name is applied to Cupressus Lawsoniana, the Port Orford or Oregon cedar, a native of the north-west States, and one of the most valuable juniper trees of North America. The Bermuda cedar (Juniperus bermudiana) and the red or American cedar (J. virginiana) are both much used in joinery and in the manufacture of pencils; though other woods are now superseding them for pencil-making. The Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) is a kind of cypress, the wood of which is very durable. Another species of cypress (Cupressus thyoides, also known as Chamaecyparis thyoides or sphaeroidea), found in swamps in the south of Ohio and Massachusetts, is known as the American white cedar. It has small leaves and fibrous bark, the wood is light, soft and easily-worked, and very durable in contact with the soil, and is much used for boat-building and for making fences and coopers’ staves. The Spanish cedar is a name applied to Juniperus thurifera, a native of the western Mediterranean region, and also to another species, J. Oxycedrus, a common plant in the Mediterranean region, forming a shrub or low tree with spreading branches and short, stiff, prickly leaves. The latter was much used by the Greeks for making images; and its empyreumatic oil, Huile de Cade, is used medicinally for skin-diseases. A species of cypress, Cupressus lusitanica, which has been naturalized in the neighbourhood of Cintra is known as the cedar of Goa. The genus Widdringtonia of tropical and South Africa is also known locally as cedar. W. juniperoides is the characteristic tree of the Cederberg range in Cape Colony, while W. Whytei, recently discovered in Nyasaland and Rhodesia (the Mlanje cedar) is a fine tree reaching 150 ft. in height, and yielding an ornamental light yellow-brown wood, suitable for building. The order Cedrelaceae (which is entirely distinct from the Conifers) includes, along with the mahoganies and other valuable timber-trees, the Jamaica and the Australian red cedars, Cedrela odorata, and C. Toona respectively. The cedar-wood of Guiana, used for making canoes, is a species of the natural order Burseraceae, Icica altissima. It is a large tree, reaching 100 ft. in height, the wood is easily worked, fragrant and durable.
See Gordon’s Pinetum; Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, Histoire du cèdre du Liban (Paris, 1838); Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, vol. iv. pp. 2404-2432 (London, 1839); Marquis de Chambray, Traité pratique des arbres résineux conifères (Paris, 1845); J. D. Hooker, Nat. Hist. Review (January, 1862), pp. 11–18; Brandis, Forest Flora of North-west and Central India, pp. 516-525 (London, 1874); Veitch, Manual of Coniferae (2nd ed., London, 1900).
CEDAR CREEK, a small branch of the North Fork of the Shenandoah river, Virginia, U.S.A. It is known in American history as the scene of a memorable battle, which took place on the 19th of October 1864, between the Union army under Major-General P. H. Sheridan and the Confederates under Lieut.-General J. A. Early. (See Shenandoah Valley Campaigns.)
CEDAR FALLS, a city of Black Hawk county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Cedar river, about 100 m. W. of Dubuque. Pop. (1890) 3459; (1900) 5319; (1905, state census) 5329 (872 being foreign-born); (1910) 5012. It is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Illinois Central, the Chicago Great Western, and the Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern railways. Its manufactures include flour, ground feed, other cereal preparations, hardware specialties, canned vegetables (especially Indian corn), and planing-mill products. It is the seat of the state normal school (1876), and has a public library. The settlement of the place, the oldest in the county, was begun in 1847; it was laid out as a town in 1851, incorporated as a village in 1857, chartered as a city in 1865, and for a short time in 1853 was the county-seat.
CEDAR RAPIDS, a city of Linn county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Cedar river, in the east central part of the state. Pop. (1890) 18,020; (1900) 25,656, of whom 4478 were foreign-born, an unusually large and influential part being Bohemians; (1910 census) 32,811. It is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific (which has repair shops here), and the Illinois Central railways, and by interurban electric lines. The city has an air of substantial prosperity; its principal streets are from 80 ft. to 120 ft. wide, paved with brick and asphalt, and well shaded. Prominent among its buildings are the federal building, the auditorium, the public library and the Masonic library, which contains one of the best collections of Masonic literature in the world. The city has two well-equipped hospitals, a home for aged women, a home for the friendless, and four parks. The grounds of the Cedar Rapids country club comprise 180 acres. Cedar Rapids is in a rich agricultural country. The name of the city was suggested from the rapids in the river, which afford abundant water power and have enabled the city to take first rank in Iowa (1905) as a manufacturing centre. From 1900 to 1905 there was an increase in the value of its manufactured products from $11,135,435 to $16,279,706, or 46.2%. More than one-fourth of the value of its manufactures is in Quaker Oats and other food preparations; among those of less importance are lumber and planing-mill products, foundry and machine-shop products, furniture, patent medicines, pumps, carriages and waggons, packed meats and agricultural implements. Cedar Rapids has also a large grain trade and a large jobbing business, especially in dry goods, millinery, groceries, paper and drugs. At Cedar Rapids are Coe College (co-educational; Presbyterian), which grew out of the Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute (1851), was named in honour of Daniel Coe, a benefactor, and was chartered under its present name and opened in 1881; the Interstate Correspondence schools, and the Cedar Rapids business college. The first settlers came in 1838; but the city’s early growth was slow, and it was not incorporated until 1856. It has been governed by commission since 1908.
CEFALU (anc. Cephaloedium), a seaport and episcopal see of the province of Palermo, Sicily, 42 m. E. of Palermo by rail. Pop. (1901) 13,273. The ancient town (of Sicel origin, probably, despite its Greek name) takes its name from the headland (κεφαλή, head) upon which it stood (1233 ft.); its fortifications extended to the shore, on the side where the modern town now is, in the form of two long walls protecting the port. There are remains of a wall of massive rectangular blocks of stone at the
