TIMBER 
AND TIMBER TREES. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The properties and characteristic qualities of the timber 
available for works of construction are so numerous 
and important, and yet so little understood generally, 
that I am induced by the solicitations of many friends 
to give, in these pages, all the information respecting 
them which I have been able to collect. This collection 
has been made during a long course of practice in the 
working of forests, and in the employment of a great 
variety of woods, and I am not without hope that the 
results will be of service to many who are engaged in 
carpentry, shipbuilding, and engineering. 
To the students of these branches of art, it will be 
my aim to make the work especially useful, as I propose 
to treat, not only of the timber known to, and dealt with 
in commerce, but to extend my observations to a few 
others which, for the most part, are equally valuable, 
although, at present, they are scarcely known beyond 
the localities in which they grow. I propose also to 
treat of the defects most frequently met with in timber 
