Pine.—There are some excellent coniferous woods in the British hill provinces of Kamaon and Garliwal and the Panjab Hiinalayas. The Cedrus deodara is there of immense age and size, 40 feet girth and 250 feet high ; its tunber is nearly im perishable. Plans longifolia occurs over all the lower IIimalaya bills, covering an area of several thousand square miles. Its timber is eqtutl to Norway pine. The Lagerstronia regime is abund ant throughout British Burma, and is used more extensively than any other, except teak, for the fittings of boats, sometimes for the hulls of canoes, in Rangoon for the knees of ships, and also now for ordnance purposes.
The padouk of the Tenasserim Provinces, Ptcro carpus I ndicus, is a beautiful, hard, compact timber.
The Straits Settlements are very rich in wood.
The Malay Peninsula also possesses many useful woods, and some four or five command a market, at very high prices, for Madras. They are strong, solid, and very durable, being principally used for girders, rafters, joists, and timber for bridges, standing the sudden changes of the climate remarkably well. One, the marrabow, is also used for furniture ; it is not subject to dry-rot, and, when well seasoned, is known to last nearly half a century. A wood called boonoot, which is tough, hard, crooked-grained, and fibrous, is in general use for masts and spars of vessels.
Ceylon, although well timbered and rich in some ornamental and fancy woods, exports but little timber.
For the preservation of timber in moist places, remove and replace the sap, or so modify it as to retard or prevent decay. With these aims, the spontanemis ascent of the sap is encouraged by retaining the felled timber in an upright position; soaking the felled wood in water so as to dilute or remove the sap ; and in the pneumatic processes, which are the most effective, the following have been used for impregnation :—Creosote of com merce (raw), carbolic acid, acetate of iron (raw), sulphate of copper, chloride of zinc, sulphate of zinc, perchloride of mercury or (kyau) corrosive sublimate, chloride of sodium (salt), sulphate of soda, saltpetre, borax, sulphate of iron, arsenic.
Various methods have been adopted to render wood less combustible, by saturating it with solutions of phosphate of soda, and muriato or sulphate of alumina, and chloride of calcium. A proposed plan is to impreg,nate wood with silicate of soda, and to coat its surface with a silicate. The itnpregnating of the wood is effected by put ting it into a solution of the silicate. The surface of the wood is then washed over with a somewhat diluted solution of the silicate of soda. After an interval of at least two hours, a coating of thick lime-wash is applied over the silicate; and finally, on the following day, a strong solution of the silicate is applied over all. In this way a pro tective covermg is given to the wood. The pro cess may bo used with benefit in the case of tirnber employed for wooden huts.
The following is a list of the relative strengths of a few of the Australitm woods, and some of Avessel built of the Australian woods, iron-bark box, banksia, and tea-tree timber, and plankec and lined with flood gum, blue gum, or blacl bust, and trenailed with iron bark, takes a higl place at Lloyds'.
The preservation of the forests of India, am the search for timbers and fancy woods suitabh for the purposes of the State And wants of tin people, have long been objects of attentive interes to the Governments of India. Amongst tin earliest of the, scientific investigators we fnu recorded the names of Drs. Roxburgh, Ainslie %filch, Boyle, Gibson, Falconer, M'Clelland Graham, Wight, and Mason ; while Mr. Edye Colonel Frith, Captain Dance, Mr. Mendis Colonel Benson, and Mr. Rohde applied a larp practical knowledge of the qualities of timber t( ascertain the woods suitable for the manufactur. ing industries of India. There have appeared or this subject—three editions of Balfour's Timbe] Trees, Timber, and Fancy Woods ; Beddome'; Flora Sylvatica ; Skinner's Indian Timbers Brandis' Forest Flora ; and Gamble's Manual o Indian Timbers.
The timber trees belong principally to tln following natural orders of plants, viz.:— —There is no regular rule for determinino• botanical orders and genera by means of th'se wood, for in some cases the structure of the genera or species presents characters of very dis similar type. But the woods of the Coniferee are always recognisable by the absence of pores •, those of the Cupuliferte by the arrangement of the pores in wavy radial lines and a particular texture. The arrangement of the pores in short wavy lines is a character of the woods of the Sapotacem. Somewhat broad medullary rays often indicate the woods of the Dilleniacete, Rhizophorew, and Myrsiueacew ; a close and even grained wood, inost species of the order Rubiacew ; while the woods of species of Ficus are recognised by alternate layers of soft and firm tissue.
The pores of different woods vary, and Mr.
Gamble gives the following examples :—Extremely small, Buxus sempervirens ; very small, Acer pictum ; sinall, Adina cordifolia; moderate, Bassia latifolia ; large, Albizzia lebek ; very large, Ery thrina suberosa.
Mr. Gamble illustrates his terms for degrees of hardness by applying them to the timbers of certain trees :—Extremely soft, Cochlospermum gossy pium ; very soft, Sterculia villosa, Bombax Mala baricum ; soft, Cedrela toona, Albizzia stipulata ; moderately hard, Ficus Bengalensis, Tectona grandis; hard, Shorea robusta, Terminalia tomen tosa ; very hard, Dalbergia sissoo, Quercus seme carpifolia ; extremelyhard, Pterocarpus Santalinus, Hardwickia binata.
In all countries, most of the woods in general use have a variety of names ; the local name varies often in the same district, Mauy have likewise a commercial name, by which they are known in the market, as Trincomalee wood, Coromandel wood, Chittagong wood, etc. There are cedars from several trees ; every country has its own iron-wood, rosewood, black-wood, and ebony. The timber trees and fancy wood of Southern and Eastern Asia are about 1000 iu number, but those in common use are not above 100. The following list contains the names of the principal trees which are felled for timber or fancy woods and useful purposes throughout the various countries in the Ea,st Indies :—