In undertaking this investigation, I hope to find results which 

 may prove of value and interest to the artisans of my native land 

 and also aid in developing, to a certain extent, the commerce and 

 industries of Nicaragua, by making some of its natural products 

 known in the United States and Europe. 



I have restricted myself to the study of those woods which are 

 most used in engineering construction and decoration, leaving 

 out the dye and other woods, which, perhaps, may be of equal 

 interest and value, there being quite as many unknown, or at least 

 unused, valuable woods and plants of this latter kind. 



I was encouraged from the start by Prof. Thurston, who very 

 kindly wrote to the Government of Nicaragua, asking for a collec- 

 tion of the most important woods of the country, expecting that its 

 officials would take, or at least show, some interest, and thus secure 

 a good collection of the woods. But unfortunately we were in 

 this disappointed. It was by my father's interest, kindness and 

 persistence, and through my friend Miguel Ugarte's active and 

 courteous help, that I was supplied with as good a collection as 

 could be obtained in the short time allowed to collect them. Steps 

 were taken to get the woods, seasoned and sound, from persons 

 engaged in working them, but they failed to obtain them. It is 

 for this reason that the woods tested have not been entirely satis- 

 factory, as they were cut green, and the men could not in most 

 cases fell large trees to get the heart or the best of the wood ; as 

 a consequence, they checked on the way, and many of them were 

 found to be knotty. The woods were collected in one month, 

 within a circuit of three leagues, on the hills about Belen in the 

 agricultural and chocolate-raising " Departmento," of Rivas, 

 between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. Some few, obtained 

 from a carpenter, are seasoned. My collection of fifty different 

 varieties represent about half the number of the useful woods of 

 the country. 



The terms used may be thus defined : The modulus of rupture 

 for tension is the force necessary to pull asunder a bar whose 

 section is one square inch, when acting in the direction of the axis 

 of the bar. 



The modulus of rupture for compression is the pressure neces- 

 sary to crush a piece of any material whose section is unity and 

 whose length does not exceed about five times its diameter. 



