ioo TIMBER AND TIMBER TREES. [CHAP. 



the year 1859, when the supply of British Oak was 

 thought to be insufficient, and the Italian forests were 

 showing signs of clearance and gradual exhaustion, the 

 Admiralty, deeming it prudent to seek for other sources 

 of supply for the service of their dockyards, directed 

 surveys of the Oak forests in the district of Broussa, in 

 Asia Minor. Having been intrusted with this duty, I 

 found a vast number of very fine Oak trees, both of 

 straight and compass form. Without doubt much good 

 timber exists there ; it is not, however, nearly equal in 

 quality to the British Oak, although it would be likely 

 to prove a good substitute for it if need required. 



Two kinds of Oak were met with in the forests to 

 the south-east of Broussa, that upon the upper ranges 

 of the mountains being similar in foliage and fruit to 

 the English Quercus Robur ; the other species, which is 

 found chiefly upon the slopes and in the valleys, is the 

 Quercus Cerris, or Mossy-cupped Oak. 



It is from these forests that most of the supplies are 

 drawn for the service of the imperial dockyards at Con- 

 stantinople and Gimlek ; the Turks very carefully 

 selecting the cleanest-grained trees for employment, 

 and apparently neglecting the hard, gnarly-looking trees 

 that would be difficult to work. They seem generally 

 to be quite content with a mild and free specimen, which 

 would require little labour to dress it to the necessary 

 form ; and therefore no correct opinion of the quality of 

 the timber in the forests of the Broussa district can be 

 formed from that seen in use in the naval establishment 

 on the Golden Horn. 



In the following year (1860) I made an inspection of 

 several of the forests in Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Croatia, 

 in European Turkey, and also some of the Oak forests in 

 Styria and Hungary, meeting with almost inexhaustible 



