1720

ARBORETUM ANU FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

soil more or less calcareous. No oak in the temperate climates is found of alarge size at a great elevation above the level of the sea; or where the climateis very severe in spring. In the Himalayas, and in Mexico, oaks are foundof large size on mountains; but then the climate, naturally hot, is only ren-dered temperate by elevation. All oaks whatever are impatient of spring frosts.

History. The oak, from the earliest ages has been considered as one of themost important of forest trees. It is celebrated, Burnet observes, “ in storyand in song, in the forest and in the field, and unrivalled in commerce andthe arts.” It was held sacred alike by the Hebrews, the Greeks, and Romans,and the ancient Britons and Gauls; and it was “ the fear of the superstitiousfor their oracle, at the same time that it was the resort of the hungry for theirfood.” The earliest histories that exist contain frequent references to thistree. The grove planted by Abraham, at Beersheba, was of allun , whichHillier considers to have been t2uercus .E'sculus; and he translates thewords cion Mamre (Gen., xviii. 1.) the oak grove of Mamre, instead of theplane or terebinthine tree, as cion or ailon is sometimes rendered. In thelike manner, “ the plane of Moreh” (Gen., xii. 6.) is said to signify the oakof Moreh ; and the plane of Mamre, wherever it occurs, the oak tree, or oakgrove, of Mamre. ( See Hicropkyticon,&c.) According to Jewish traditions, theoak of Mamre (Gen., xviii. 1.), under which Abraham stood when the angelsannounced to him the birth of Isaac, long remained an object of vene-ration ; and Bayle ( Did. Hist, et Crit.) says that it was still in existence inthe reign of the emperor Constantine. This tree, or rather the grove ofMamre, is frequently alluded to in the Old Testament; and in Eusebius’sLife of Constantine we find the oaks of Mamre expressly mentioned, as a placewhere idolatry was committed by the Israelites, close to the tomb of Abraham,and where Constantine afterwards built a church. The first mention ofthe word oak in the English version of the Bible appears to be in Gen.,xxxv. 8. : — “ But Deborah Rebekah’s nurse died, and site was buried beneathBethel under an oak : and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth : ” literally,the oak of weeping. Numerous other instances of the mention of oaks occurin the Holy Scriptures, particularly in the case of Absalom, whose hair wascaught “ by the thick boughs of a great oak.” ( Second Book of Sam., xviii. 9.)Joshua, before his death, made a solemn covenant with the people inShecbein, and, after writing it in the Book of the Law of God, “ took a greatstone, and set it up there under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord,”as a witness unto them, lest they should deny God. (Joshua, xxiv. 26.)

Among the Greeks, the Arcadians believed that the oak was the first createdof trees, and that they were the first people; but, according to others, theoaks which produced the acorns first eaten by men grew on the banks ofAchelous. Pelasgus taught the Greeks to eat acorns, as well as to build huts.The oak groves of Dodona, in Epirus, formed the most celebrated and mostancient oracle on record; and Pliny states that the oaks in the Forest ofHercyma were believed to be coeval with the world. Herodotus, andnumerous other Greek writers, speak of celebrated oaks ; and it was an oakthat destroyed Milo of Croton. Pliny states that oaks still existed at thetomb of Ilus near Troy, which had been sown when that city was first calledIlium. Socrates often swore by the oak ; and the women of Priene, a mari-time city of Ionia, in matters of importance, took an oath by the gloomy oak,on account of a great battle that took place under an oak between the Prie-nians anil other lonians. On Mount Lycaeus, in Arcadia, there was a temple ofJupiter with a fountain, into which the priest threw an oak branch, in times ofdrought, to produce rain. The Greeks had two remarkable sayings relative tothis tree, one of which was the phrase; “ I speak to the oak,” as a solemn asse-veration ; and the other, “ Born of an oak,” applied to a foundling; because,anciently, children, when the parents were unable to provide for them, werefrequently exposed in the hollow of an oak tree.

Frequent reference is made to the oak, by ancient writers, on account ofthe use made of the acorns in feeding swine. In the Bible , the woods of