424 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 
an almost illimitable amount of unused sylvan wealth is to be found. 
Despite the obvious advantage of the Congo River, with its 3,000 
miles suitable for timber transport and its hundreds of tributaries 
with many more thousand miles of streams, capable of floating logs, 
only the smallest quantities of mahogany are exported from the 
Belgian Congo. 
No doubt the large size of the river and the great distance of some 
of the forests from the sea have hindered a more rapid and intensive 
exploitation of the forests. In fact, Mahogany (Khaya sp.) as an 
export timber is not really so well known as Redwood (Pterocarpus 
sp.), though the former has been shipped in the round. In the past 
a better known Belgian wood was blockwood or boxwood, known 
as Polyadoa umbellata or Dialium Guincense. Other forest products, 
however, such as Gum Copal (Daniella sp.), are found in huge quantities, 
in large blocks weighing over a hundredweight, and have been 
exported for many years. 
Large quantities of rubber, too, have been exported, and Oil Palm 
products, such as kernels and oil, are of increasing export importance, 
especially since Les Huileries de Congo have started working up the 
Oil Palm forests with modern means of transport and machinery 
on three different tracts of 10,000 hectares each. 
The railways of the Congo, supplementing as they do the water- 
ways, have also not been used to any extent for the shipment of 
timber, though vast quantities of firewood have been burnt on them 
as well as conveyed to the various stations both near and on the River 
Congo. To some extent the paucity and low density of population 
per unit of area has tended to hinder the working of heavy produce 
such as timber, which is difficult to transport compared to rubber, 
with its higher value per unit of weight. Owing to this fact, too, 
near the mouth of the Congo there is an almost savannah forest 
on the banks of the river, which has given the country the appearance 
of not being an afforested one. In the past the system of huge, 
exclusive trading concessions over specific areas being granted only 
to one firm also hindered any free development of the more lower- 
priced forest produce such as timber. 
SPANISH GUINEA 
From Eloby, a little-known port situated in the middle of the coast 
of the Spanish possession south of the Cameroons, a great deal of 
Gaboon Mahogany (Oukoumea Klaineana), Redwood (Pterocarpus 
Soyauxia), and several other timbers have been exported. Despite 
the fact that the forests are not extensive, but almost untouched, 
and very rich in mahogany, a comparatively small number of firms 
have been working these areas. Apparently there are no forest laws, 
