286 WOODS OF COMMERCE 



old trees have burrs the wood of which resembles Amboyna-wood. 

 It is very fragrant when fresh, so as to resemble Rosewood, owing 

 to an oleo-resin which also renders the wood probably the most 

 durable of kaown timbers, making it obnoxious to termites and 

 keeping off rust from iron in contact with it. Seasoned Teak has, 

 however, a very unpleasant smell, which has been compared to 

 that of old shoe-leather. It is the general practice to "girdle'' 

 the trees — i.e., to cut a complete ring through both bark and sap- 

 wood, so kiUing the tree and rendering it Hght enough to float to 

 the port of shipment ; and, as usually a year elapses between the 

 felHng and its delivery in England, it arrives sufficiently seasoned, 

 heavy, moderately hard, clean, even, and straight in grain, but 

 little shrunken, spHt or warped in the process. The rapid drying, 

 however, induced by girdling is said to render the wood inelastic, 

 brittle, and less durable, so that it splits too readily for use in gun- 

 carriages. Teak varies very much according to locahty and soil, 

 that of Malabar being darker, heavier, and rather stronger than, 

 though not so large as, that of Burma. Though without shakes on 

 its outer surface. Teak nearly always has a heart-shake, which, owing 

 to a twist in the growth, may often at the top be at right angles to 

 what it is at the butt, thus seriously interfering with conversion, 

 though often little aSecting the use of the timber in bulk. In the 

 large Rangoon or Irrawaddy Teak there is also sometimes a close, 

 &ie star-shake. In these shakes an excretion of apatite or phosphate 

 of lime consolidates in white masses, which wiU turn the edge of most 

 tools. After girdling, the dead trees are often attacked by burrow- 

 ing insects, which may penetrate beyond the sapwood and so render 

 the timber unfit for reduction to plank. Being a deciduous tree. 

 Teak has distinct annual rings, with large and distinct vessels which 

 are rather larger and more numerous in the spring- wood and are 

 sometimes filled with the apatite. The pith-rays are distinct and 

 light-coloured, as in Oak, but fine, the vessels in the spring-wood 

 being 2 — 3 together between every two rays. Teak splits readily 

 and is easily worked, somewhat like Oak, but it owes its superiority 

 for ship-building over both Pine and Oak in part to its freedom from 

 any change of form or warping, when once seasoned, even under 

 the extreme climatic variations of the monsoons. In India, Teak is 

 used for railway sleepers, bridge-building, and furniture. As the 

 Indian Forest Department plant several thousand acres annually, 

 there is Httle fear of tke exhaustion of the supply, whUst the timber 

 from cultivated trees is said to be better than that grown in the 

 natural forests. Teak is very larsely exported, especially from 

 Mouhnein md Rangoon, that from the former pori, drami from the 

 valleys of the Salwen and Thungyen Rivers being rather shorter but 

 less shaky than that shipped at Rangoon from the Irrawaddy valley. 

 Teak from Java is gritty and too hard. Whilst it is the best timber 



