Cypress

an evergreen tree akin to our white cedar and arbor vitae. The cypress of history is native to the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region and eastward to Persia. A cypress in Lombardy twenty-three feet in circumference is believed to have been alive in the days of Julius Caesar. In making his road over the Simplon Pass, Napoleon turned aside to save this tree. The wood of the cypress is heavy, firm, and full of resin, which excludes water and is not subject to the attacks of insects. For these reasons cypress wood is the type of durability. It is thought that the gopher wood of the Old Testament was cypress. The ancients were familiar with the qualities of cypress wood. The Egyptians used it in making mummy cases. A statue of Jupiter carved out of cypress is stated, on the authority of Pliny, to have existed 600 years. The cypress doors of St. Peter's Church in Rome are said to have lasted 400 years and to have shown no sign of decay when changed for bronze ones. "Cypress was in request for poles, rafts, joists, and for the construction of wine presses, tables, and musical instruments, and on that account was so valuable that a plantation of cypress was considered a sufficient dowry for a daughter." Laws were engraved on cypress tablets. The family treasure was entrusted to a cypress chest.

The cypress of the Levant is a slender, dark, gloomy, stately tree, 60 to 100 feet in height. If a tree be cut down, the stump never sprouts again. It has long been considered the emblem of mourning and the symbol of death. Eastern nations plant it in their cemeteries, and place twigs in the coffin of the dead. The cemeteries about Constantinople are dense cypress groves. A cypress tree planted by a grave keeps solemn guard through the centuries. It is to this popular fancy that Longfellow alludes: