30 Timehri. 
typical of mahoganies and similar to the forementioned, differs considerably 
on close examination of the tangential section. The rays are much narrower and 
greater in height, not so close together and the pores are wider and more numer- 
ous. In other respects while different specimens vary within wide limits in 
weight, closeness of grain and colour, really good crabwood may be said 
to be darker than true mahogany, to have a pinkish rather than an ochreous tone, 
brownish red occasionally occurring, about equal in hardness, opener in the 
grain but taking a more satiny lustre from the plane, at least on boardwise or, 
strictly, tangential surfaces. Compared with Khaya crabwood is harder, much 
more lustrous and rather finer, and straighter in grain than my specimen of the 
former, which happens to show a twisted grain which may or may not be generally 
characteristic. 
African mahoganies of commerce as I have indicated are of numerous species, 
and vary much in value. One sample called ‘“‘ Gaboon ” and priced on the home 
market at 1s. 6d. per cubic foot is nearly similar to a good Dalli and inferior to 
any average sample of crabwood. Ina letter to me, dated 28th June, Mr. Stone 
says that except Khaya “ all the other African mahoganies are spurious and are 
for the most part entirely unlike any kind of mahogany, some being actually 
white.” This is entirely consistent with my experience. In Edinburgh last year in 
a cabinet-maker’s workshop I came across some timber which had been sold to 
him as mahogany but was more like a very soft Wooley of the colony, drusy in the 
transverse section, almost white in colour and with bad wind-shakes all through. 
Another sample however of so-called “* African, ” {rom trade sources also, shows 
up much better. The price paid for this log was, I believe, 4s. 6d. per cubic foot. 
{tis not mahogany although the transverse section bears some resemblance to 
Mr. Stone’s “‘Caoba”’ section in “‘ Timbers of Commerce” in the distribution of 
the soft tissue, of which the arrangement is analogous to that in Hoobooballi 
(Stryphnodendron sp.) but isa fine deep-toned red wood, grainy in appearance, 
reminding me in this respect of our Determa, rather harder and finer in grain 
than crabwood. In tangential section the hatching of the pores, the different 
relation of pores and rays and the size of latter, varying in at least four degrees 
of height, separate it from the true mahoganies. 
It may be remarked however that this latter feature of irregular height of 
pores is, according to Mr. Stone, a character of Bermuda, Honduras and Tobasco 
mahoganies (vide ‘‘ Timbers of Commerce,” p. 33.) and seems possibly to 
depend upon the length of the rays and their manner of pinching out, with 
gradual taper or abrupt. 
It will thus be seen that the mahogany of commerce is, speaking generally, any- 
thing but mahogany, that what an expert Edinburgh cabinet-maker called the 
“rale auld mahogany ” (it was really a fine dark piece of crabwood I was 
showing him) is, generally, not Swietenia but an allied species, and that on the 
whole the nomenclature of timbers of this class is among trade experts in a 
sad state of confusion. 
A word in conclusion about the future of our colonial mahogany or crabwood, 
and cedar. Hither of these woods may be classed for various purposes as equal 
to the best African timber. The complaint sometimes made of a tendency to 
