elegant, as well as the most luxurious, of the Romans loved to have for their banqueting-halls. The planks were sawn out of the Thyine tree, and measured about four feet in diameter; they were valued according to the veins, knots, and colours, which variegated them; and were called from those accidents, tiger citron, leopard, peacock's feather, or fly citron tables. Cicero appears to have introduced this luxury to Rome: but the most costly we read of is one that Tiberius caused to be plated all over with one of the precious metals. The trees producing these citron tables grew chiefly in the forests skirting Mount Atlas, which were exhausted even in Pliny's time: but the mountain Anchorarius, in Upper Mauritania, yielded the best and fairest trees; and these trees were very like to the female cypress in leaf, in smell, and in bulk. These descriptions, I think, leave little doubt that the Thyine is the Algum of Scripture, the modern Thuya articulata; and, as it was easily procurable by the ships of Tyre from the port of Cyrene and those of Mauritania, Hiram would naturally send so precious a material for the building of the Temple. That it came to Jerusalem from Joppa, with the firs and cedars, appears certain; because Solomon applies to Hiram for it in these words: "Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and Algum trees, out of Lebanon." 2 Chron. ii. 8. The little difference in time between St. John and Pliny does nothing to weaken the opinion that the Thyine tree, an object of commerce to Babylon, is the same with the Algum and the citrine. This tree yields the gum sandarach, so much used in the preparation of parchment; and therefore an absolute necessary to the Jews, who were commanded to make such frequent copies of their Scriptures, and who required, besides, an immense quantity of parchment for their phylacteries, that is, texts written on slips, to be bound upon their hands, and worn as frontlets between their eyes, and placed upon the doorposts of their houses, and upon their gates. * Some writers, and among them Sprengel, suggest that the Algum tree might be sandal wood: but the * Deuteronomy, vi. 8, 9. The modern Jews write a sentence of the Law on parchment, and enclose it in a glass or brazen tube, and fix it to their doors. It is said that sandarach is also gathered from the juniper and the tamarisk, which some of the Arabs call indifferently Arar. sandal wood of Sprengel is the Pterocarpus santalinus or red sanders, not the true sandal wood. It is an Oriental coniferous tree; and those who take either it or the true sandal for Algum have an authority in the tenth chapter of the first book of Kings, and ninth chapter of the second book of Chronicles, not at all agreeing with Solomon's request as to the trees to be furnished by Hiram; for it is related that "the navy of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of Almug trees and precious stones." However this may be, it is certain that the true sandal wood is unfit for the purposes to which the Algum was applied, especially for the making of musical instruments, while the Thuja is particularly adapted to them, and was moreover easily purchased by Hiram from the Phoenician colonists along the African shore of the Mediterranean; but the bringing of sandal wood, or even red sanders, from so distant a country as Eastern India, the nearest place where it is found, particularly in such large quantities, would have been extremely difficult, even to the fleets which brought the spices and precious metals from Ophir to the ports of the Red Sea. ALMOND. Amygdalus communis,- Common Almond. Linnæan class and order, ICOSANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Gen. xliii. 11. Num. xvii. 8. Exod. xxv. 33, 34.; xxxvii. 19, 20. Eccl. xii. 5. Jerem. i. 11. THIS pretty little tree, whose pink and white blossoms appearing before the leaves, make our gardens gay in the early spring, bears two varieties of fruit, the sweet, and the bitter almond. The sweet almond is known best as a mere luxury in this country, though the apothecary makes great use of it in emulsions for coughs and colds. By long pounding in a mortar, the oil and the substance of the almond become so thoroughly mixed, that a kind of milk is formed, which I have seen put into tea, like cow's milk, during a sea voyage. The bitter almond yields a great quantity of that powerful medicine, yet terrible poison, prussic acid; notwithstanding which, the smell and taste are so agreeable, that confectioners, particularly in Italy, use it to flavour many of their sweetmeats and cakes.* The Jews both of ancient and modern times naturally reverenced the Almond, as it was the subject of one of the miracles wrought at the time when they were brought up out of their Egyptian bondage, and received the law which distinguished them among all nations as the people of God. When the heads of the families of Israel presented their rods or staffs before God, the rod of Aaron, though long cut from the tree, budded, blossomed, and even * The duty on almonds, called Jordan almonds, imported from Syria to England in 1841, amounted to 33737., and of other almonds, to 41447. |