1 9 o TIMBER AND TIMBER TREES. [CHAP. 



dimensions, but, unfortunately, is liable to early decay in 

 the centre. The sound trees, however, yield solid and 

 useful timber of from 20 to 40 feet in length by 1 1 to 24 

 inches square, while those with faulty centres furnish only 

 indifferent squares of smaller sizes, or pieces unequally 

 sided, called flitches. 



The wood is red in colour, hard, heavy, close in 

 texture, slightly wavy in the grain, and with occasionally 

 enough figure to give it value for ornamental purposes ; 

 it works up quite smoothly, and takes a good polish. 

 Cabinet-makers may therefore readily employ it for 

 furniture, but for architectural and other works where 

 great strength is required it should be used with caution, 

 as the experiments prove it to be somewhat brittle in 

 character. 



Some few years since a small supply of this wood 

 was sent to Woolwich Dockyard, with the view to test its 

 quality and fitness for employment in ship-building, but 

 the sample did not turn out well, owing to the want of 

 proper care in the selection of the wood in the colony. 

 The shipping officer sent only such small squares as 

 might have been produced from logs cut or quartered 

 longitudinally, which left in each case one weak or shaky 

 angle, instead of sending the full-sized compact square 

 log representing all that the growth of the tree would 

 give. It is just possible, however, that this was unavoid- 

 able, since it may be inferred from the nature of the 

 conversions that the trees from which they were cut 

 commenced to decay at the centre at or about mid-life, 

 and they had become hollow at the root-end of the 

 stem, long before they arrived at maturity. 



This remarkable defect being characteristic of the 

 Jarrah tree, it follows that no compact and solid square 

 log beyond the medium size can be obtained of the full 



