256 ON WOODS AND MANUFACTURES. OF WOOD 



rich brown colour. This section measures three feet six inches in dia- 

 meter, and is perfectly sound throughout. The tree from which it was 

 cut was known to be 280 years old, and had reached the height of seventy 

 feet ; many similar trees are said to be growing on the same estate. 



The Prince Schaumburg-Lippe exhibits very excellent oaken-staves 

 for wine casks, with the statement that he has 150,000,000'Austrian cubic 

 feet of similar wood at his disposal, from trees which have been standing 

 from 200 to 250 years. 



Emil Raikem, steward of the estates of Wsetin, sends a very remark- 

 able cut, or transverse section of an immense stem of the silver pine 

 (Abies pectinata). This stem when cut and trimmed was 143 feet in 

 length, with a diameter of six inches at the top, and contained 1,500 

 cubic feet of timber. 



Excellent specimens of various kinds of timber from the estates of 

 Prince Esterhazy in the Comitat of Somogy, are exhibited by the farmers 

 of the estate, Messrs. Freistadtler and Co. And the Count Nicholas 

 Esterhazy also sends equally good specimens from his estates in the 

 Comitat of Romarom ; and another excellent series is exhibited by 

 Gabriel Varady, Chairman of the Exhibition committee for the Comitat 

 of Maramarvas. An ingenious and beautiful method of showing the 

 varieties of elegant curls found in the native wood has been adopted by 

 Professor Henry Engl, who has had twenty-nine" specimens inlaid in a 

 table-top, so artistically as to produce an excellent representation of the 

 arms of Austria. 



Good collections are also shown by the Agricultural Society of 

 Goritz ; Prince John of Lichtenstein, Bernard Pollak, jun. (chiefly for 

 carriage builders, wheelwrights, and coopers' uses), Hugel and Co. of 

 Bistritz, Peter Barabas of Arad, Stephen Kazy of Nernes-Orozi, in the 

 Comitat of Bars, the Town Council of Kremnitz, and M. D. Bombaner 

 of Szkleno, in the Comitat of Bars. 



A very fine series of ship timber, oak for railway and artillery car- 

 riages, and coopers' staves, is shown by the Baron Hilleprand Gustavus 

 Prandau of Valpo, Slavonia. 



Of wood prepared for various purposes, the following exhibits are en- 

 titled to notice : — 



The fir and pine telegraph poles, impregnated with sulphate of copper 

 by Boucherie's process, sent by Francis Kreuter, of Vienna, whose works 

 are said to produce 20,000 poles per annum. 



An important production of the Austrian forests is the fine, smooth- 

 grained, soft, and sonorous wood of the silver-pine, which in that country 

 yields the material which supplies to the rest of Europe the best sound- 

 ing-boards for pianos and other musical instruments. The smaller por- 

 tions of this wood also enables the Austrians to make the best matches, 

 the choicer kinds of which, as shown in the case of Anthony Sartyni, of 

 Smorce, in Galicia, are remarkable for the elegance of their manufacture 

 and the extraordinary cheapness at which they can be produced, the 



