MAJOLICA 



181 



wood, they might admit vessels of 12 years' standing -without any risk. In the year 

 1846 tho Honduras merchants presented a memorial to Lloyd's Committee, praying 

 for a removal of the existing limitations to the general use of mahogany in the build- 

 ing of vessels of the highest class. Attached to this memorial were numerous cer- 

 tificates from persons well qualified to give an opinion on the subject, speaking in tho 

 highest terms of mahogany for ship-building. Captain E. Chappel, R.N., Secretary of 

 the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, says he " has seen the Gibraltar, 80-gun ship, 

 which was broken up at Pembroke. This ship is entirely of mahogany ; captured of 

 the Spaniards in 1780 ; all her timbers sound as when put into her. Tables for the 

 Navy made of the timbers of the Gibraltar. The steamer Forth, built by Mr. Menzies 

 of Leith, has as much mahogany put into her as could be obtained. The use of ma- 

 hogany ought to be the rule, and not the exception." The qualities of mahogany, 

 which render it peculiarly fitted for ship-building, are its lightness and buoyancy, its 

 freedom from dry-rot, and its non-liability to shrink or warp. The price of mahogany 

 varies according to the size, figure, and quality of the wood. One tree from the 

 northern districts, which was cut into three logs, sold for 1,800^., or 10s. per super- 

 ficial foot of 1 inch ; southern wood of small size and inferior quality has been sold at 

 Z\d. per foot. The present prices in London for small-sized plain mahogany are from 

 5d. to 6d. per foot ; for large-sized plain, from Id. to IQd. ; and for large, of good 

 quality and figured, from 9d. to Is. 6d. 



' The yearly average quantity of mahogany exported from Honduras during the 

 last ten years is about 8,000,000 feet, equal to 20,000 tons, or 200,000 tons in tho 

 whole ten years, requiring 160,000 trees.' 



AFRICAN mahogany (Swietenia senegalensis], from Gambia, has been used of late 

 years for curriers' tables, mangles, &c., and may be used for turning. It is denied 

 by some authors to be a Swietenia ; but, if not so, it is a very closely-allied 

 genus. 



There are two or three varieties of the Swietenia in the East Indies -which are 

 ornamental woods, but not mahogany. 



The importance of this wood will be seen from the following statement of the 

 Imports of mahogany in 1868-70, and 1872: 



MAIZE. A genus of monocotyledonous plants belonging to the natural order 

 Grraminea the grasses. There are only two species known, and these both belong to 

 America. The Zea- mays is the Indian corn or common maize ; and the Zea caragua, 

 the Chilian maize or Valparaiso corn. Both these varieties are largely cultivated as 

 articles of food. 



XVtA JOXiXC A, known also as Faenza and Raffaelle ware. A term for soft enamelled 

 pottery, first introduced into Italy from Majorca about the twelfth century, and which 

 was the work of the Moors. 



The distinguishing points of the so-called majolica are coarseness of ware, and an 

 opaque white enamel containing binoxide of tin, and decorated in colours. A large 

 class ascribed, although possibly on insufficient grounds, to Valentia, is characterised 

 by elaborate conformity of pattern, flushed with metallic lustre, on a greyish- white 

 ground. 



Of tho positively Italian wares, though they were so greatly in request that most of 

 the cities of the Romagna instituted manufactories of them, but little can be ascer- 

 tained prior to the sixteenth century. 



The towns most celebrated after A.D. 1500 for their artistic productions are Pesaro, 



