THE EXHIBITION AT PARIS. 103 



were by practitioners more looked at and admired than even the yet 

 untried specimens from the English colonies of the New World. 



At present the greatest inquiry is after timber for ship-building. 

 Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans, expressed their admiration of 

 Austrian Oaks; and, according to their statements, Oak-wood of such 

 dimensions is not to be met with anywhere else, except in a small part 

 of Russian Poland. The exhibitors were their Excellencies the Counts 

 St. Genois and Zamoisky; the domain Brandeis, from which came a 

 section of an Oak of sixty-four years of age, which was thirty-six inches 

 in diameter ; this was the object of admiration of the ship-builders of 

 all nations. 



Mr. Bienert, in Maderhauser (in the district of Budweis), a tenant 

 of the forests of the Prince of Schwarzenberg, had sent excellent spe- 

 cimens of wood of unsurpassed quality, adapted for the manufacture of 

 musical instruments, particularly sounding-boards. He exhibited two 

 cross-cuts of Fir; the one grown on rocks showed fourteen inches of 

 diameter, and 430 concentric rings, and from such trees in particular 

 sounding-boards are made ; — the other showed four feet of diameter, 

 and 450 concentric rings : the tree had grown at the foot of a moun- 

 tain, in ordinary soil. The cross-cuts of Oak-wood sent in by Count 

 Zamoisky and Count St. Genois, were five to six feet in diameter, and 

 of exceedingly regular growth : they excited general admiration. 



When I saw what an important place the Austrian Oak-wood occu- 

 pied at the Exhibition, I wrote for some specimens from Slavonia, in * 

 order to obtain the opinion of the English and French ship-building 

 engineers present on the Jury. Count Elz, at Vukovar, sent five spe- 

 cimens : Quercus Cerris, Robur, pedunculata, fcemina, and Austriaca 

 (also called alba or macrocarpa) . It was considered that Quercus Ro- 

 bur.fcemina, and Austriaca were excellent for ship-building. 



Everywhere the plantation of Oak is highly recommended, and the 

 Government exerts itself to secure for the future a needful quantity of 

 timber for ship-building. Of this Austria has yet abundance, which 

 will form a great part of her national wealth, if it is properly converted 

 into money, and if the forests are managed in sucb a manner as to 

 have sufficient after-growth. Now the question is to find means to 

 convert the wood into money in the most advantageous manner; and 

 this is to be done by sending it directly to the timber-merchants in 

 great seaport-towns. I have visited the dockyards at Toulon, Bor- 



