a. Of rocks, edifices, etc.
1658. Phillips, Spiral, belonging to a pyramid or spire-steeple.
1665. J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 181. Trophies … were evermore made of high and spiral Stones: And they will have these … which are high and spiral, to be, not a Trophy, but a Place for electing of Kings.
1740. Dyer, Ruins Rome, 138. The spiral tomb Of ancient Chammos.
1772–84. Cook’s Voy. (1790), V. 1675. The various summits which are spiral cannot be viewed without exciting the most awful ideas.
b. Of trees.
1729. Savage, Wanderer, IV. 15. Turning, with sighs, far spiral firs he sees.
c. 1750. Shenstone, Elegies, xxiii. 91. Cheer’d by the verdure of my spiral wood.
1827. Steuart, Planter’s G. (1828), 338. It is indispensably necessary … that the standard or grove Trees should be kept spiral, and the underwood subordinate in its character.
1842. J. Wilson, Chr. North, I. 365. The sweet Furness Fells,… among its spiral larches showing … groves and copses of the old unviolated woods.
