THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

[175] Some have supposed that it was so called because it was the place
of
public execution. _Gulgoleth_ in Hebrew, or _gogultho_ in Syriac, means
_a
skull_.
[176] Quoted in Oliver, _Landmarks_, vol. i. p. 587, note.
[177] Oliver's idea (_Landmarks_, ii. 149) that _cassia_ has, since the
year 1730, been corrupted into _acacia_, is contrary to all
etymological
experience. Words are corrupted, not by lengthening, but by
abbreviating
them. The uneducated and the careless are always prone to cut off a
syllable, not to add a new one.
[178] And yet I have been surprised by seeing, once or twice, the word
"Cassia" adopted as the name of a lodge. "Cinnamon" or "sandal wood"
would
have been as appropriate, for any masonic meaning or symbolism.
[179] Eclog. ii. 49.
"Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens,
Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi:
Tum casia, atque aliis intexens suavibus herbis,
Mollia luteola pingit vaccinia, caltha."
[180] Exod. xxx. 24, Ezek. xxvii. 9, and Ps. xlv. 8.
[181] Oliver, it is true, says, that "there is not the smallest trace
of
any tree of the kind growing so far north as Jerusalem" (_Landm._ ii.
136); but this statement is refuted by the authority of Lieutenant
Lynch,
who saw it growing in great abundance at Jericho, and still farther
north.--_Exped. to the Dead Sea_, p. 262.--The Rabbi Joseph Schwarz,
who
is excellent authority, says, "The Acacia (Shittim) Tree, Al Sunt, is
found in Palestine of different varieties; it looks like the Mulberry
tree, attains a great height, and has a hard wood. The gum which is
obtained from it is the gum Arabic."--_Descriptive Geography and
Historical Sketch of Palestine_, p. 308, Leeser's translation. Phila.,
1850.--Schwarz was for sixteen years a resident of Palestine, and wrote
from personal observation. The testimony of Lynch and Schwarz should,
therefore, forever settle the question of the existence of the acacia
in
Palestine.
[182] Calmet, Parkhurst, Gesenius, Clarke, Shaw, and all the best
authorities, concur in saying that the _otzi shittim_, or shittim wood
of
Exodus, was the common acacia or mimosa nilotica of Linnaeus.
[183] "This custom among the Hebrews arose from this circumstance.
Agreeably to their laws, no dead bodies were allowed to be interred