CORK is the exterior bark of a tree which has beendescribed in the Encyclopædia. When the tree is about15 years old it is fit to be barked, and this can be donesuccessively for eight years. The bark always growsup again, and its quality improves as the age of thetree increases. It is commonly singed a little over astrong fire or glowing coals, or laid to soak a certaintime in water, after which it is placed under stones inorder to be pressed straight. We were wont to pro-cure the greater part of our cork from the Dutch, whobrought it principally from France; but they importedsome also from Portugal and Spain. This tree, as well as the uses to which its bark isput, was known to the Greeks and the Romans; bythe former of whom it was called stamnos, and by the lat-ter suber. By the Romans, as we learn from Pliny,it was even employed to stop vessels of every kind; butits application to this use seems not to have been verycommon till the invention of glass bottles, of whichProfessor Beckmann finds no mention before the 15thcentury. In later times, some other vegetable productions havebeen found which can be employed instead of cork forthe last-mentioned purpose. Among these is the woodof a tree common in South America, particularly inmoist places, which is called there monbin or monbain,and by botanists spondias lutea. This wood is broughtto England in great abundance for that use. Thespongy root of a North American tree, known bythe name of nyssa, is also used for the same end, as arethe roots of liquorice, which on that account is muchcultivated in Scavonia, and exported to other countries.