128 SWIETENIA MAHOGONI. 
so large as that from Honduras and Brazil. The trees are seldom found in 
clusters or groups, but single, and often much dispersed. 
The mahogany nourishes as well in India as in its native country. Dr. Rox- 
burgh, in the "Transactions of the Society of Arts," at London, for 1806, states 
that two plants were sent from Jamaica, in 1795, to the court of directors of the 
botanic garden at Calcutta, and that in 1804, about five hundred trees had been 
grown from them. And according to Mr. Royle, in his " Essay on the Produc- 
tive Resources of India," published in 1840, this tree thrives so luxuriantly in 
Bengal, that many thousands of them are growing there, and even small pieces 
of furniture have already been made of the wood. 
The excellency of the wood of mahogany, for all domestic purposes, has long 
been known. It was used by the Spaniards in the XVIth century, in the con- 
struction of ships, for which purpose it is better adapted than most other kinds 
of timber, being very durable, resisting gun shots, and admitting the balls without 
splintering ; nor is it so liable to be attacked by marine insects as that of the oak, 
and hence is preferable for the construction of ships intended to sail in inter- 
tropical seas. It was used in repairing some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships, at 
Trinidad, in 1597, but was not brought into use in Britain till 1724. Accord- 
ing to Mr. Burrowes, the first use to which it was applied in England, was to 
make a box for holding candles. " Dr. Gibbons, an eminent physician in the 
beginning of the last century, had a brother, a West India captain, who brought 
over some planks of this wood as ballast. As the doctor was then building a 
house in King street, Covent Garden, his brother thought they might be useful 
to him ; but the carpenters finding the wood too hard for their tools, they were 
laid aside as useless. Soon after, Mrs. Gibbons wanting a candle-box, the doc- 
tor called on Wollaston, his cabinet-maker, in Long Acre, and requested him to 
make one of some wood that lay in his garden. Wollaston also complained that 
it was too hard ; the doctor said that he must get stronger tools ; the candle-box 
at last was made, and so highly approved of, that the doctor insisted on having 
a bureau made of the same wood, which was accordingly done ; and the fine 
colour, polish, etc., were so pleasing, that he invited all his friends to come and 
see it. Among them was the Duchess of Buckingham, who begged some of the 
wood of Dr. Gibbons, and employed Wollaston to make a similar bureau." 
From this introduction it came into general use throughout the civilized world. 
The largest log of mahogany on record was cut in Honduras, and shipped to 
England. Its length was seventeen feet; breadth, fifty-seven inches; depth, 
sixty- four inches ; cubic contents, four hundred and thirty feet ; and weight, 
eight tons. The next largest log we have on record, was a few years since sold 
by auction, at the docks, in Liverpool. It was purchased for 378, and after- 
wards sold for 525. It is believed to have realized, to its final owners, 1000. 
It is likewise stated that the cost of labour, in the process of sawing into veneers, 
was 750. The weight, on the king's beam, was six tons, thirteen hundred 
weight. According to Mr. M'Culloch, a few years ago, Messrs. Broadwood, 
the distinguished piano-forte manufacturers, in London, gave the enormous sum 
of 3000 for three logs of mahogany, all the product of a single tree ! They were 
each about fifteen feet long, thirty-eight inches square, and contained, all 
together, about four hundred and fifty cubic feet. They were cut into veneers 
of an eighth of an inch in thickness. The wood was peculiarly beautiful, capable 
of receiving the highest polish, which, when done, reflected the light in the most 
varied manner, like the surface of a crystal ; and from the wavy form of the 
fibres, offered a different figure in whatever direction it was viewed. 
Seaso?i for Felling, fyc. The cutting of mahogany at Honduras takes place 
at two different seasons of the year, one soon after Christmas, or at the end of 
the " wet season," and the other early in August. At the last-named period the 
