Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/118

98 moderate degree of hardness and strength, but with nothing in its appearance to recommend it to favourable notice. The private ship-builders therefore declined to use it, and as upon trial it was found unsuitable for the royal dockyards, none has of late been imported.

—Each piece broke with a moderate length of fracture. Oak timber has also been imported from Spain in considerable quantities, for ship-building and other purposes. The logs were generally small, or, at the best, of only medium dimensions, curved or crooked at the butt end, and tapering rather quickly towards the top. The wood of the Spanish Oak is of a dark brown colour, plain and even in its grain, porous, softer than most other Oaks, and liable to excessive shrinkage in seasoning.