MAHOGANY. 
161 
as being too hard. The Doctor's cabinet-maker, named Wollaston, was employed 
to make a candle-box of it, and as he was sawing- up the plank he also complained 
of the hardness of the timber. But when the candle-box was finished, it out-shone 
in beauty all the Doctor's other furniture, and became an object of curiosity and 
exhibition. The wood was then taken into favour ; Dr. Gibbons had a bureau 
made of it, and the Duchess of Buckingham another ; and the despised mahogany 
now became a prominent article of luxury, and at the same time raised the for- 
tunes of the cabinet-maker^ by whom it had been at first so little regarded. 
The mahogany-tree is found in 
great quantities on the low and 
woody lands, and even upon the 
rocks, in the countries on the west- 
ern shores of the Caribbean Sea, 
about Honduras and Campeachy. It 
is also abundant in the islands of 
Cuba and Hayti, and it used to be 
plentiful in Jamaica, where it was 
of excellent quality ; but most of the 
larger trees have been cut down. 
It was formerly abundant on the 
Bahamas, where it grew on the m ^ 
. ^ „ Mahogany Tree, Swietenia Mahogani. 
rocks to a great height, and lour 
feet in diameter. In the earliest periods it was much used by the Spaniards in 
ship-building. When first introduced by them it was very dark and hard, and 
without much of that beautiful variety of colour which now renders it superior to 
all other timber for cabinet-work ; but it was more durable, and took a higher 
polish with less labour. At that time it was called Madeira wood, though it appears 
to have come from San Domingo (Hayti), and the Bahamas. Of course it was 
wholly unknown to the ancients. It was first introduced in the sixteenth century, 
but it was not generally used in England till the eighteenth. 
The mahogany is a graceful tree, with many branches, that form a handsome 
head. The leaflets are in pairs, mostly four, and sometimes three, but very rarely 
five ; the pair opposite, and without any odd leaflet at the point ; they are smooth 
and shining, lance-shaped, entire at the edges, like those of the laurel, and bent 
back ; each leaflet is about two inches and a half long, and the whole leaf is about 
eight inches. The flowers are small and whitish ; and the seed-vessel has some 
resemblance to that of the Barbadoes cedar ; hence some botanists have given the 
name of cedar to the tree. 
This tree so far corresponds with the pine tribe, that the timber is best upon 
the coldest soils and the most exposed situations. When it grows upon the moist 
soils and warm lands it is soft, coarse, spongy, and contains sap-wood, into which 
some worms will eat. That which is most accessible at Honduras is of this 
description ; and therefore it is only used for coarser works, or for a ground on 
which to lay veneers of the choicer sorts. For the latter purpose it is well 
adapted, as it holds glue better than deal, and, when properly seasoned, is not 
so apt to warp, or to be eaten by insects. When it grows in favourable situations, 
VOL. IV. — NO. XLIII. Y 
