MAHOGANY TREE. 
101 
ship was in harbour at Trinidad, in 1595.” The first use 
to which it was applied in England, was the humble one of 
forming a candle-box, and about the end of the 17th cen- 
tury, it was brought into notice by Dr. Gibbons, a London 
physician, who had received planks of it from his brother, 
commanding a vessel in the West India trade. Since 
which time it has been employed for costly furniture, and 
occupies the most distinguished place in the drawing-rooms 
of nobility and fashion, quite supplanting the old oaken 
tables and domestic panelling of antiquity. 
The most beautiful wood for variety of figure and agree- 
able accident, is obtained from sections of the base of the 
stem and root. No other wood can rival it for diversity 
of shades, presenting spots, waves and clouds, more varied 
even than the tortoise shell, which it so much resembles. 
Its superior density also allows it to acquire the highest 
polish of which any wood is susceptible. 
The principal supply of Mahogany is now obtained from 
Honduras ; but it is of a very inferior quality, being open 
grained, light and porous, and of a paler and inferior colour. 
Trees, it seems, grown in low or alluvial lands, never give 
a rich and hard wood. Hence the Mahogany of St. Do- 
mingo and that of the Bahama Islands, is considered supe- 
rior to what is at present exported from Jamaica. It was 
formerly employed by the Spaniards of Havanna in ship- 
building, and it is said to be unattacked by worms, to 
endure long in water, and to receive the bullet without 
splitting. Mr. Grout, cabinet maker, in Philadelphia, so 
curious in our native woods, has favoured me with a speci- 
men of Mahogany from East Florida, remarkable for its 
waving spots, which almost exactly resemble those of the 
Bird’s Eye Maple. 
The bark of the Mahogany is astringent, and considered 
useful in diarrhoea; indeed it resembles that of the Cin- 
chona in colour and taste, though somewhat more bitter. 
