Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/120

100 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 Constantinople 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 (1860) 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