132 MAHOGANY. 
occupies a great number of hands, and is an unpleasant 
and very unhealthy pursuit. 
In the year 1715 some seeds of the log- wood tree 
were introduced into the island of Jamaica; and this 
wood is now chiefly employed in that island as a fence 
against cattle. As an article of commercial export, it 
does not appear to answer so fully as could have been 
wished ; yet, in morassy parts of the island, it grows 
in considerable luxuriance. 
Few kinds of wood are of more solid texture than 
this. Hence arises its weight, which is so great that it 
will sink in water. Its predominant colour is red, 
tinged with orange and black ; and its hardness such 
that it is capable of being polished, and is scarcely 
susceptible of decay. For exportation to Europe, it is 
cut into billets or logs, each about three feet in length. 
The chief use of log-wood in this country is for 
dyeing green, purple, blue, and black colours, accord- 
ing to the different ingredients with which it is em- 
ployed. It gives a purplish tinge to watery and spiri- 
tuous infusions ; but all the colours which can be pre- 
pared from it are fugitive, and cannot, by any art, be 
rendered so durable as those prepared from other 
materials. 
Independently of its use as a dyeing drug, log-wood 
possesses considerable utility as an astringent medicine, 
chiefly under the form, of a decoction, or of an extract 
boiled down to a proper consistence. 
The price of logwood at .Honduras is so low as 
not usually to exceed 12Z. or l^l. Jamaica currency 
per ton. 
143. MAHOGANY is the wood of a well-known tree 
(Swietenia mahagoni, Fig. 44) of large dimensions, with winged 
leaves, and small white flowers, which grows in Jamaica and 
Honduras. 
The branches of this tree are numerous and spreading. Its 
leaves are alternate and winged, with four or Jive pair of leaflets, 
which are somewhat spear-shaped. The flowers are numerous, 
small 9 whitf,} and in spikes or clusters, which arise at the junction 
of the leaves with the branches. 
