Timbers 



311 



colour than Honduras mahogany from British Honduras. Choice Spanish mahogany is hardly 

 ever, used now except as a veneer. An inferior variety of Honduras mahogany, softer and of 

 lighter colour, grows on the moist lands around the Bay of, Honduras, and is often known as 

 Bay Wood. 



All these other mahoganies are^of small importance commercially in Great Britain com- 

 pared with West African mahogany. The mahogany area of West Africa forms an irregular 

 band, parallel to the coast from Gambia to the Cameroons. The timber is of great size, and 

 some of the wood is most beautifully figured and fetches a very high price. 



Rosewood. The most important rosewood of commerce is Brazilian, derived from a 

 species of Dalbergia, a leguminous tree. Another name for this variety is Jacaranda wood. 

 The wood has a characteristic fragrant smell, is hard, coarse but even grained, and varies in 

 colour from purplish. brown to black. It is highly valued as a furniture wood. 



Satinwood. There are two satinwoods of commerce, the one from the East and the 

 other from the West Indies. The former is the more important and is usually known as East 

 Indian, Tamil, or Ceylon satinwood. It is obtained from a forest tree (Chloroxylon Swietenia) 

 which occurs in Central and Southern India and Ceylon. 



West Indian satinwood is very similar. in appearance to the preceding, and indeed difficult 

 to distinguish, from it, but it usually possesses less " fire," and is almost without figure. It 

 is derived from a species of Zanthoxylum, of the Orange family. Its curious greasy smell 

 helps to identify it. •. * .; 



Ebony. The. name ebony is. commonly .applied to any black, hard, and heavy 'wood, but 

 properly it is limited to the heartwood of species of the genus Diospyros. 



Photo by N. P. Edwards, Littlehatnpton 



TIMBER LOGS IN THE OTTAWA RIVER 



