We are to-day sending out into the markets of the world, 

 annually, something like $30,000,000 worth, probably, of wood, in 

 the form of manufactured articles mainly, particularly as furniture, 

 and the time is coming when we shall supply a very large part of 

 the world with its timber and manufactured wood products ; but 

 this will only hasten the day when we must look to the West 

 Indies and to Central and Western America, perhaps to South 

 America, for our own supplies. 



It was considerations such as have been above outlined that led 

 the writer, some years ago, to endeavor to secure such data rela- 

 tive to the useful qualities of the tropical and semi-tropical woods 

 as would, in the course of time, prove useful to our own people as 

 well as to the citizens of those neighboring countries to which we 

 shall be likely to first look for our supplies of the heavier sorts of 

 timber ; for it will be seen that nearly all of the semi-tropical and 

 tropical woods are of the hardier varieties and are distinguished 

 rather by their hardness and strength than by lightness and ease 

 of working the peculiar qualities of the varieties of the coniferae 

 from which we obtain the greater part of our timber to-day. The; 

 first attempt to investigate these hard woods of the warmer lati- 

 tudes in a systematic and satisfactory manner was probably that 

 undertaken some ten or fifteen years ago by French engineers and 

 naturalists studying the trees of New Caledonia. Later investiga- j 

 tions of a similar character have been made, usually since the wor.k^ 

 directed by the writer about to be referred to as initiating his own. 

 researches, by British authorities, in India and in the Australasian. 

 colonies of Great Britain. The first systematic study of these 

 classes of woods in America, so far as the writer has observed, was 

 made at the suggestion and request of the writer by Mr. E. D. 

 Estrada and published in Van Nostrand's Magazine for November 

 and December, 1883. Recently, another investigation has been 

 undertaken in the Mechanical Laboratory of the Sibley College, 

 Cornell University, by Mr. Rufus Flint, the results of which will 

 here be presented. Mr. Flint, although by descent on the father's 

 side an American, is a native of Nicaragua, and, until coming into 

 the United States to obtain his education, has been a resident of 

 that country. Through his relatives and friends and assisted by 

 the liberality of the Government, which allows such material to 

 enter duty free, Mr. Flint has been able to secure a fine collection 



