CATALOGUE OF THE TIMBERS OF THE WORLD 95 



Harewood. Source unknown. Weight, 54 lbs. San Domingo. 



This timber, known in London as " harewood," and in Liverpool as 

 " concha satinwood," is imported in square-hewn logs, from about 

 8 to 24 inches square and 8 to 20 or more feet long. In San Domingo it 

 is named "pino macho " (male pine), and so distinguished from satinwood, 

 which is known as " espanello." At first sight these two woods appear 

 to be very similar in colour, weight, and texture. Harewood, however, 

 though yellow in colour and displaying a beautiful satiny lustre, is more 

 dull and greyer or browner in tint, and is sometimes traversed by black 

 " gum " streaks ; moreover, on exposure to light and air its greyness 

 gradually increases until with age the wood acquires the silver-grey hue 

 characteristic of genuine old harewood and has been imitated by stain- 

 ing sycamore to produce artificial harewood (q.v.). The majority of 

 logs imported show abundant roe and mottle figure, with a preponder- 

 ance of the fiddle mottle effect. Some of these have realised very high 

 prices (£3 or more per cubic foot) for veneers. When used for panelUng 

 and banding in cabinet work the wood produces attractive and artistic 

 effects. It might with advantage be used for the backs of brushes of 

 the highest quality. Harewood was employed in the form of marquetry, 

 in a seventeenth -century Flemish and German backgammon board 

 which is exhibited in the South Kensington. Museum. 



The annual rings (or zones of growth) are sharply marked by narrow 

 light lines at the successive boundaries. The scattered little groups of 

 pores are visible to the naked eye by reason of the light halo surrounding 

 each. The numerous medullary rays are likewise visible. 



Though the wood shows a striking resemblance to West Indian 

 satinwood in the. structure of the growth-rings and even in the great 

 variation of their width, yet in my specimens of harewood the pores are 

 larger, and they, as well as the medullary rays and boundary lines of the 

 annual rings, stand out in cross-section more sharply from the darker 

 general mass of the wood. It is possible that harewood and West Indian 

 satinwood belong to the same family, if not to the same genus. 



Harewood, Artificial. Stained sycamore or maple. 



So-called " harewood " has in recent years been obtained by 

 staining sycamore, or sometimes other maple, in such a manner 

 as to produce a beautiful silver-grey wood with a metalHc sheen. 

 Several timbers, either white or verging on to white, are capable 

 also of the treatment. The wood can be stained completely through. 

 First practised in Paris, the process remained a secret one until taken up 

 in Germany, and more recently in England. It has been found that the 

 colour is induced by the action of iron salts (ferrous sulphate, for instance). 



