i8 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



MAHOGANY LOG HEWN WITH THE CROOK 

 SHOWING DECREASE OF FAN. 



Galveston. 



To those who hard are striving. 



For gain of wealth conniving, 

 Yet find that maliing money's quite a troubie — 



I say, take cheer; invest some 



Way down in fair Galveston. 

 For dollars planted there are sure to double. 



No one that has not visited Galveston can 

 have any idea what rapid strides toward 

 higher development are being made in this 

 city which is progressing by leaps and bounds 

 as its inhabitants are beginning to feel the 

 confidence and security afforded them by the 

 sheltering protection of the great sea- 

 wall, which has just been completed and 

 which has earned for Galveston the name 

 of the Sea-wall City. This wall is a stupen- 

 dous work, a marvel of modern engineering, 

 and reflects the energy, determination and 

 undaunted spirit of the people whom the sea 

 has scourged but conquered not. 



While cities strive for the mastery of the 

 Pacific others strive for the mastery of the 

 Gulf as well, and Galveston will be the win- 

 ner. It is the greatest cotton shipping port 

 in the world, there being nearly 4,000,000 

 bales shipped from there last year. As to 

 the total wealth of export and import trade 

 it ranks second of all the ports in the United 

 States, as proven by government statistics. 

 It has five grain elevators of from 1,000,000 

 to 1,500,000 bushels' capacity each. They 

 are so equipped with the most modern grain- 

 handling devices that a large steamer can be 

 loaded in a few hours. Everywhere the ar- 

 rangements for handling heavy freight are 

 complete. There are eighty-three docks or 

 piers, handling vast quantities of all kinds 

 of freight that contributes to the increasing 

 commerce of that part of the country. 



One day recently there were three ships 

 discharging cargoes of steel rails for Mexico, 

 one a five-masted schooner and two steam- 

 ships; in all there were thirty-four ships tak- 



ing on and unloading their cargoes at the 

 Galveston wharves. 



Timber men are much interested in the tre- 

 mendous business that is being trancittea 

 along that line. There are oak logs, walnut 

 logs and mahogany logs, ties, staves and lum- 

 ber of all kinds, piling, poles and creosoted 

 timbers of all sizes and descriptions chang- 

 ing hands. The writer noticed some round 

 pine logs or spars two of which measured 

 80 feet long, 36 inches in diameter at the 

 butt, and 23 feet at the top end. There were 

 others almost as large, which was a great sur- 

 prise, as the majority of such large trees are 

 extinct in the United States except in the far 

 Korthwest. There was also a bunch of 139 

 walnut logs being loaded ou the steamship 

 Inchmarlow of Liverpool, the largest was 12 

 feet long and 39 inches in diameter at the 

 top ■ none were less than 16 inches in diam- 

 eter. They would average about 10x21 and 

 were a^ood lot of walnut. There is not much 

 of this timber going into Galveston now, but 

 it usually begins to come more rajndly about 

 the first of the year. 



An item of timber that attracted particu- 

 lar attention was a lot of mahogany logs from 

 southern Mexico, as fine a lot as will be seen 

 in a long time, both as to size and length; 

 they appeared to be such as would yield a 

 large per cent of very fine figured wood. A 

 great many of the logs had one fan each, and 

 a number of them had two; taking them all 

 together the writer has never seen a bunch of 

 logs, according to its size, in which there were 

 as many large fans. It must necessarily be a 

 very large tree that will have two forks large 

 enough to produce two commercial fans. 

 There were ninety-eight pieces in this ship- 

 ment, the longest being 26 and the shortest 

 5 feet long. The largest log was 40 inches 

 square at either end and 16 feet long; the 



HEWN MAHOGANY LOG SHOWING DOUHLE 

 INCltEASE OF FAN. 



smallest, 20 inches square at the butt, 17 by 

 20 at top, and 14 feet long. There were some 

 smaller pieces, but they were single fans. The 

 ninety-eight logs weighed 148 tons. They 

 were brought up from Vera Cruz, Mexico, 

 on one of the small Cuban steamers, trans- 

 ferred at Galveston to one of the large 

 English boats, the steamer Boniface, Septem- 

 ber 25, 1907, and reshipped to Liverpool. 



It seems rather odd that such commercial 

 transactions as this are being made ; it is pos- 

 sible that these very logs, or a part of them at 

 least, will go to England and then be brought 

 back to the United States. They were doubt- 

 less a choice lot of very fine wood, such as is 

 being sought after by the cabinet wood deal- 

 ers of this country. In a report sent out 

 recently it was stated that at one of the regu- 

 lar mahogany sales in Liverpool about 95 

 per cent of the entire lot of mahogany dis- 

 posed of was bought by Americans to be con- 

 sumed in the United States. Of coarse the 

 greater part of this was African wood, but 

 there was doubtless considerable of it from 

 Mexico, Central America and Cuba, and it 

 is safe to say that some of it had passed 

 through our own ports, just as this shipment 

 did. 



The sketches or drawings which accompany 

 this article were made from four of the logs 

 in the lot; the shapes are not exaggerated in' 

 the least. They are exact representations, 

 however, of the most peculiarly hewn sticks 

 in the lot. The fact that they are fan logs 

 adds greatly to their peculiar appearance, and 

 the manner of hewing or dressing them is 

 certainly an extravagant way of handling 

 valuable timber. They are sawed into, boxed 

 or notched down, and the log divided into 

 different sections of increased or decreased 

 measurement, so that it is quite a mathe- 

 matical problem to figure out their contents. 

 Scribner's rule vpill not apply to the log as 

 a whole, for each section has a different 

 caliper, or measurement, and the flare of the 



MAHOGANY LOG SHOWING Uri'ER OR TOP FAX HEWN ON A 



TWIST, CAUSED liY THE LIMHS FORMING IT NOT 



BRANCHING OUT AT RIGHT ANGLES WITH 



THOSE FORMING THE FAN BELOW. 



MAHOGANY LOG, 22 FEET LONG. l>RKi'VT!Fn FOi! «niI'MENT 

 ACCORDING TO THE ENGLISH METHOD OF DRESS- 

 ING THIS TIMBER. 



