Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/105

XIV.] is a fact worth mentioning, as showing the unusual hardness of this kind of timber, when well seasoned, that I have known many sawyers, when only entered temporarily in the dockyards for some pressing work to be done, leave rather than be employed in cutting this timber.

Very large supplies of this description of timber were sent to H.M. dockyards during the years 1860 to 1863, the greater part of it having been contracted for just prior to the introduction of iron ships for war purposes. But the wooden fleet having been almost superseded by the time it was delivered, a considerable quantity of it is still upon hand (1875); yet even now, although much of it has been from ten to twelve years in store, it is for the most part in a good state of preservation. The French Government for a long time drew upon the Italian states for considerable quantities of this Oak for the use of their dockyards, and were often competing with our own for the possession of it; thus, until quite recently, Italian Oak was an important and valuable article to the two chief naval powers of the world.

In the employment of this wood very few defects are found, and no better evidence is necessary to show that great care is taken of it during its growth. It has both the star and the cup shake, but neither of these defects are very common in the Oaks grown upon the mainland or in the island of Sardinia. The Sicilian Oaks have, however, rather extensive cup-shake defects.

It was stipulated in the conditions of the navy contracts that about three-fourths of all the Italian Oak timber should be of compass form—that is to say, to qualify it as such, it must have at least five inches of curve in twelve feet, taken in any part of the length of the log; and this proportion was almost invariably