no TECHNICAL PKOPERTIES OF WOUD. 



Bright yellow : Poplar, Scotch pine, Weymouth-pine. 



Greyish yellow : Sycamore, ash, heech, hornbeam. 



Brownish yellow : Oaks, mountain-elm. 



Reddish : Alder, common elm, larch- and Scotch pine heart- 

 wood, Cembran pine. 



Reddish brown : Mahogany, red cedar, and many Indian woods. 



Golden brown : Teak. 



Dark brown : Walnut. 



Black : Ebony. 



Some woods may have different shades of colour, as oak, which 

 is either dark or light. This shading of colour in woods may be 

 very marked, and caused by variations of soil and rate of growth, 

 more or less perfect formation of heartwood, &c. 



[In satin-wood, stripes of different shades (due to different direc- 

 tions of its grain) appear in the same wood ; in marbled wood these 

 shades have striking contrasts, as in Calamander-wood, a kind of 



ebony. — Ti:.] 



After wood has been kept for some time its colour usually 

 deepens, and many bright-coloured woods become grejish. 

 Spruce in dry situations retains its bright colour longer, whilst 

 silver-fir soon becomes grey : on this account the wood of spruce 

 is preferred to that of silver-fir for wainscots and floors. 



Artificial colours are imparted to wood by acids, varnishes, 

 stains, milk of lime, &c. 



2. TiXturr of Wood. 

 The texture of planed wood depends on its anatomical structure, 

 on the arrangement of its fibres, and the direction in which it 

 has been sawn. "Wood may be straight-grained, wavy, mottled, 

 bird's-eyed, kc. The grain may be fine or coarse, the latter 

 often owing to rapid growth. The former quality may usually 

 be detected on the bark, as coarse-barked trees are usually 

 coarse-grained. Wood is said to be even-grained when it 

 possesses fine medullary rays, and not only equal annual zones, 

 but narrow summer-zones, as in slow-growing sessile oak, 

 spruce or silver-fir. Wood is also even-grained in the case of 

 many fruit-trees, with evenly- distributed pores (pear, apple, 

 cherry, service-tree, &c.). 



