1885.] FURNITURE- WmJiS.' 291 



FURNITURE WOOBB.:"'^'^ Sniiaetator .tsorrr 



ME. SIMMONDS' tables of the Impart into Britain of these 

 woods are very variable, iudicating probably that the 

 demand for such luxuries varies with tlie prosperity or otherwise of 

 the nation. Mahogany has an average consumption of 50,000 tons, 

 while the supply seldom ranges more than about 5000 tons above 

 or below this quantity. French walnut, the finest and most costly 

 of the veneering woods, is imported from Asia Minor and Persia. 

 The burr is the valuable part of the tree. Sometimes as much as 

 £100 to £200 was obtained for them; indeed, one shown at the 

 Paris International Exhibition in 1878 fetched £1000, or about 8s. 

 a pound weight ; but now the consumption is limited to pianoforte- 

 makers. Burrs of walnut wood from America and Italy, which used 

 to fetch £10 to £45, now only bring £9 to £30. Boxwood, chiefly 

 used by the turner and wood-engraver, gets very scarce, while 

 substitutes are eagerly sought for. 



For a particularly fine piece of ebony £1 the pound has been 

 paid, it being difficult to get large pieces that can be used without 

 cutting. Prime large logs from Ceylon fetch readily £14 per ton 

 and upwards. Our largest annual imports of this wood vary from 

 1000 to 2000 tons. In 1883, the ebony e-xported from Ceylon 

 weighed 17,547 cwt., and was valued at £8720. 



The ebony wood of conuuerce, the duramen of several species of 

 Diospyros, not that alone of D. Ebenaster, found in India, Siam, 

 Ceylon, the Philippines, Madagascar, and Mauritius. Three kinds 

 prevail in commerce — the Mauritius, East Indian, and African, and 

 they rank in value according to the above position. 



Other woods from the West Indian islands and other colonial 

 dependencies lie open to the cabinetmaker so soon as he shaU. have 

 the boldness to utilize new material. Thus one lesson of the 

 International Exhibition was the acceptability of the Xew Brunswick 

 maples in the manufacture of ordinary household furniture ; and 

 while there appear to be no dark-coloured woods in that province, 

 it seems to us that the finer varieties of sucli woods as the curly 

 mull and bird's-eye rock-maple might be largely used here in cabinet 

 work. We learn that little or no attention is paid in that province 

 to the markings of wood, and that the most beautifully-grained maple 

 or cherry birch is as little esteemed as the ordinary straight-grained 

 kind. If more attention were paid to this matter, and careful 

 selections of pretty and well-seasoned wood made for exportation, we 

 are satisfied that owners of timber there would find here markets 

 which they did not expect, and that the waste of much vahialile 



