PREFACE. 



THE purposes of the present work are to provide a description 

 of the wood of each species of tree present in the collection made 

 in British Guiana under the superintendence of the Hon. A. G. 

 Bell, M.Inst.C.E., sometime Colonial Civil Engineer; to identify 

 the species as far as possible, and to refer them to their systematic 

 position; to collect any information concerning these species that 

 may already have been published; to record the results of tests 

 made upon the woods by means of tools commonly used in the 

 conversion of timber, and to report upon their commercial utility 

 with especial regard to their prospect of gaining a footing in the 

 English market. 



In order to ascertain the systematic names of the different 

 species, a set of the leaves and fruits of each tree were supplied. 

 Special difficulties stood in the way of the addition of a collection 

 of the flowers, hence the comparatively limited success that has 

 been achieved in this important part of the work. It should be 

 borne in mind that, in order to obtain both fruits and flowers, 

 not only must the time of fruiting and flowering be known (which 

 is not often the case), but the knowledge of each species must be 

 sufficiently accurate to enable the collector to be sure that the 

 kind of tree from which he obtains flowers is the same as that 

 from which he subsequently gathers fruits. He cannot mark a 

 tree and pay it another visit at a different season, because the 

 forest is often so dense that a tree must be felled before the 

 crown can be seen. To go on felling trees until one happens 

 upon the right one, to botanise by means of the appearance of 

 the bark and trunk alone, and to fix the right native name upon 

 a tree when found, are too much to expect from a collector. Hence, 

 with much regret, we are compelled to leave many of the 

 species with their native names only, but we hope that the 

 description of the wood is sufficiently copious and minute to enable 

 future workers to fill up the gaps. Botanists having the oppor- 

 tunity of collecting flowers, leaves and specimens of wood from 

 the same tree, may, by means of the first, ascertain the systematic 

 name, and, with the help of our descriptions, locate the wood 

 amongst the species in the present series. The authors will gladly 

 welcome assistance from travellers and timber-dealers in the Colony, 

 who may be in a position to fell trees during the flowering period. 



