Mahogany. 99 
specimens of local grown timbers -I have examined I find that the S. mahogani 
grown here corresponds absolutely in these characters with Mr. Stone’s descrip- 
tion and the specimen he sent me. It is well to emphasise this point that the 
identity of wood from S. mahogani trees is, judging by specimens of various 
age I have procured, never in doubt for a moment. 
I am led, from various specimens of furniture wood examined and a specimen 
for which I am indebted to a Berbice cabinet-maker, said by him to have been 
taken from a tree which grew at the Colonial Bank in Georgetown, to believe in 
the existence in tropical America of a darker mahogany closely related to 
Swietenia but much more common. I have not yet been able to find in old 
furniture here a single bit of true mahogany in all the numerous specimens I 
have examined. On the other hand I have in my own house an occasional] table 
the wood of which is undoubtedly identical with the wood of the Colonial Bank 
tree above mentioned. This latter specimen is very dark, almost brownish black 
in parts, coarser in grain, much harder and the pores much larger than in S. 
mahogani, the surface of the planed wood without lustre, almost rough to the 
touch. In tangential section the rays appear of similar width to S. mahogani 
but one and a half times as high, less regular in alternation, and further apart 
not of two sizes or with only a ray here and there which seems aborted or may 
be the tapering end of a full sized ray, and with a tendency for successive ray 
to coalesce and form one very large ray ; sometimes observable as we shall see 
in §, mahoganc. 
One specimen of the latter kindly taken for me by Mr. Joseph from a tree 
in the Public Gardens, New Amsterdam, is from the stump of a limb about seven 
inches in diameter. It has about one inch of whitish sap well defined from the 
heartwood and deepens in colour towards the centre. The sawdust is light 
ochreous rather than red. Another specimen procured for me by Mr. Beekett 
from a tree at PIn. Providence is from a small branch and is, of course, young 
wood. It is interesting in thatit displays the typical characters of the mature 
Swietenia beyond any doubt as to its identity. I should be inclined to 
describe the appearance of the tangential section of this species under the two 
inch objective as more like coconut matting than anything else. In the local 
specimens there appear under higher powers some aborted rays and a tendency 
here and there to a little irregularity in the alternate arrangement and to 
confluennce of two rays as if the longitudinal fibres had failed to hold their 
place between. 
The nearest approach to S. mahogani in British Guiana woods is found 
in Cedar (probably C. odorata) in which the raysare farther apart but 
approximate in width and are only slightly greater in height. The cells in 
the rays are rather larger than those of mahogany, three or four diameters 
of a cell making the width of ray as compared with four or five in 
Swietenia. There is a strong similarity in size and distribution between 
cedar and the dark mahogany of which I have already spoken. Compared 
with cigar box cedars from commercial sources the colony cedar has in 
tangential section more the characters of Swietenia while the cigar 
box cedars approach nearer to the characters of our erabwood. The latter 
(C. guianensis) while in transverse and radial sections it presents the characters 
