Note 128 — Chapter III · THE WEAPONS OF THE AGE OF WOOD: THE BOOMERANG AND THE SWORD OF WOOD; OF STONE, AND OF WOOD AND STONE COMBINED.
Reading edition
In Bacon’s day (Aphorisms, book ii.) gummy woods were supposed to be rather a Northern growth, ‘more pitchy and resinous than in warm climates, as the fir, pine, and the like.’ They are as abundant near the Equator, where the viscidity preserves them from the alternate action of burning suns and torrential rains; moreover, they are harder and heavier than the pines and firs of the Temperates.