INTRODUCTION. 



IN publishing the 'Manual of Indian Timbers/ the compilation 

 of which has, owing 1 to the writer having been at the same time engaged 

 in his ordinary official duties, lasted over three years, it is necessary 

 to make a few remarks on the circumstances which have led to its 

 preparation, the materials by the assistance of which it has been 

 compiled, and the sources from which the information given in its 

 pages has been drawn. It will be remembered that the forests and 

 forest products of India were represented at the Paris Exhibition of 

 1878 by a collection which was undoubtedly the most complete that has 

 ever been formed in India and sent to Europe for exhibition. This col- 

 lection, prepared and arranged under the immediate supervision of Dr. 

 Brandis, the Inspector General of Forests, was got together in the winter 

 of 1877-78, by the simple process of inviting from the different Local 

 Governments and their Forest Officers the contribution of rough wood 

 specimens and other products, which were afterwards prepared and ar- 

 ranged in a central workshop, first in Simla and afterwards in Calcutta. 

 During the progress of this work, which lasted from August 1877 to 

 May 1878, a very large and valuable series of wood specimens, of un- 

 doubted botanical determination, was received. The pieces of wood (to 

 which class of specimen alone we need now refer) which were then sent, 

 were so large and valuable that it was settled that at the same time as 

 the principal object of the work, the collection for exhibition at Paris, 

 was got ready, a number of duplicate sets should be also prepared, suffi- 

 cient to supply a good stock to the Royal Gardens at Kew, and to other 

 museums both in Europe aad America, as well as type collections to 

 be deposited in the offices of the Forest Conservators in the different 

 Provinces or Circles. It is obvious that such authentic collections are 

 likely to serve as reference collections of great and undoubted value, 

 not only to Forest Officers, but to all persons interested in timber 

 and ornamental woods and their applications to engineering works 

 or industrial manufactures. Chief among these collections was that 

 specially set apart for the Museum of the Forest School of Dehra Dun, 

 and next to it in completeness in India was the collection deposited in 



