vil. | EXPERIMENTS ON TIMBER. 41 
France, Prussia, Asia Minor, and European Turkey, and 
also in the royal forests in England, and later on as 
Timber Inspector of a dockyard, and Timber Inspector 
to the Admiralty, every effort has been made to acquire 
a knowledge of the capabilities and characteristic 
properties of the several varieties of timber which came 
under notice. 
Many of the experiments to which I shall have to 
refer were made at Woolwich Dockyard, where it was 
necessary, as a part of the duty of my office, to ascertain 
the specific gravities, strength, and measurement, and 
attend to the receipt of the timber coming in under 
contract with the Admiralty. 
Especial care was taken to carry out the experiments 
upon wood brought to a well-seasoned condition and fit 
for appropriation to works of construction ; and in many 
instances we have tried not only a number of pieces 
taken from different trees, but a series of pieces from 
the same tree, with a view to find, if possible, in what 
part the maximum of strength lay. 
Formerly, I believe, it was the practice to carry out 
these experiments upon exceedingly small pieces of 
wood, and I have seen it stated that some were no 
bigger than a French line, =°0888-inch measurement, and 
varying in size from that to about one quarter of an inch 
of English measure, the result per square inch being 
obtained by subsequent calculations. This was probably 
done in consequence of the great difficulty there is in 
securely holding, and bringing a sufficient strain to bear 
upon and break the larger scantlings. I should not, 
however, be disposed to place much reliance in the 
results so worked out, as it would seem to be impossible 
to reduce pieces of wood to such small dimensions 
without cutting across some of the fibres, and thus 
