IOO 
TIMBER AND TIMBER TREES . [chap. 
the year 1859, when the supply of British Oak was 
thought to be insufficient, and the Italian forests were 
showing signs of clearance and gradual exhaustion, the 
Admiralty, deeming it prudent to seek for other sources 
of supply for the service of their dockyards, directed 
surveys of the Oak forests in' the district of Broussa, in 
Asia Minor. Having been intrusted with this duty, I 
found a vast number of very fine Oak trees, both of 
straight and compass form. Without doubt much good 
timber exists there; it is not, however, nearly equal in 
quality to the British Oak, although it would be likely 
to prove a good substitute for it if need required. 
Two kinds of Oak were met with in the forests to 
the south-east of Broussa, that upon the upper ranges 
of the mountains being similar in foliage and fruit to 
the English Quercus Robur ; the other species, which is 
found chiefly upon the slopes and in the valleys, is the 
Quercus Cerris, or Mossy-cupped Oak. 
It is from these forests that most of the supplies are 
drawn for the service of the imperial dockyards at Con¬ 
stantinople and Gimlek ; the Turks very carefully 
selecting the cleanest-grained trees for employment, 
and apparently neglecting the hard, gnarly-looking trees 
that would be difficult to work. They seem generally 
to be quite content with a mild and free specimen, which 
would require little labour to dress it to the necessary 
form ; and therefore no correct opinion of the quality of 
the timber in the forests of the Broussa district can be 
formed from that seen in use in the naval establishment 
on the Golden Horn. 
In the following year (i860) I made an inspection of 
several of the forests in Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Croatia, 
in European Turkey, and also some of the Oak forests in 
Styria and Hungary, meeting with almost inexhaustible 
