Excerpt from The Timbers of Commerce, and Their Identification The material for this work was collected without any idea of publication, and was intended only for my own use. Coming into possession Of a. Business in which very many different kinds Of wood were used, and finding great difficulty in distinguishing one from another, I fell back, for lack Of any practical experience, upon my knowledge of Botany, and collected a mass Of informa tion, not only concerning the woods used in my workshops, but also concerning a constantly increasing range Of Species. I have received much valuable help from the late Secretary of the Colonies, The Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, to whose good will I am indebted for a great number of Specimens sent me at his request. Thanks are also due to the agents-general Of South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, New Zealand and Natal; to the Governor Of Lagos, and to the Forest Officers Of those Colonies, for the liberal way in which they have responded to the request from the Colonial Office. Further I acknowledge most gratefully the assistance I have received from Sir William Thistleton Dyer, Sir Dietrich Brandis, and the late Sir Frederick Abel. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.