FANCY WOODS. 167 



" Other woods are named after the places they come from, 

 as Coromandel-wood, Amboyna-wood, &c." 



"Woods are largely used as dye-stuffs ; the chief of these 

 is log- wood, which has a deep red colour, is very heavy and 

 solid, and yields a great deal of red colouring matter. It is 

 very astringent, and contains tannic and gallic acids, from 

 which properties it produces a deep black colour when mixed 

 with any of the salts of iron ; from this peculiarity it is very 

 valuable as a black dye, but the black dye so extensively 

 used for dyeing cloth, is, for the most part, made from 

 galls, or " nut-galls," as they are sometimes called. These are 

 hard round substances found growing on many species of oak, 

 chiefly the " Quercus infectoria," and 

 the best are brought from Aleppo ; 

 they are diseased growths produced by 

 a little insect, called the " Cynips 

 Quercus," which deposits its eggs 

 under the epidermis of the leaf, and 

 the juice collects and forms the gall PIGL 22 ALEPPO <*ALL. 

 (fig. 22), from the interior of which 



the larva eats its way out ; thus it will be found that every 

 gall must have a little round hole in it, whence the larva 

 of the cynips has issued. 



The root of the Madder plant (Uubia tinctorum) produces 

 the most beautiful and permanent of our red dyes, and the 

 cochineal insect (Coccus cacti) obtains its colour from 

 feeding upon the cactus. 



A useful and very permanent blue dye is obtained from 

 Indigo, a kind of extract from the plant " Indigofera," 

 growing in India and other places, and many other members 

 of the vegetable kingdom yield dyes and colours used in 

 the arts. 



Amongst the various and almost endless purposes to 

 which wood is applied, that of serving as a material 

 to engrave on and print from must not be omitted. The 

 wood used for this purpose is that of the box-tree (Bums 

 sempervirens), which furnishes a close, even-grained, hard 

 wood, admirably suited to the purpose ; and the cultivation 

 and perfecting of this most admirable art, has produced an 



