CHAPTER VI. 



EXPERIMENTS ON TIMBER. 



Having treated of the principal defects to which timber 

 trees are liable during their growth — and perhaps they 

 are all that need be now considered, as others of a less 

 important character will be noticed later on, whenever 

 they affect any particular class of wood — I will pass for 

 the present to the description in detail of the various 

 timber trees, observing, by the way, that the tables 

 appended are the results of experiments made trans- 

 versely, tensilely, and vertically on specimens taken 

 from the wood of the tree described. In some cases 

 these are very numerous, and will be, I consider, 

 invaluable, as showing the range and variation of the 

 strength and specific gravities of each wood ; further^ 

 they include some rare, and at present scarcely known, 

 species of timber, which may at a future day be in 

 request in this country for building purposes. 



It need scarcely be stated here, since it will be well 

 understood, that to classify and collect the notes in 

 order to record these tests of strength, etc., in timber, it 

 has taken a very long time, and, but for the exceptional 

 opportunities I had during a long course of service in 

 the royal dockyards and elsewhere, it would have been 

 impossible for me to have obtained these results. 



While employed surveying timber for the Navy in 



