Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/166

146 shrinks very little, it rarely warps, and stands exposure to the weather a long time without opening with surface shakes, or sustaining any apparent damage.

African timber, possessing, as it does, so many good properties, is employed in ship-building for beams, keelsons, riding bitts, stanchions, &c., and in a variety of ways; but in civil architecture, and in the domestic arts, it is only sparingly used, on account of its weight.

This timber is brought upon the market in very roughly-hewn logs, intended, no doubt, to be square, but varying considerably from that form, and taking, generally, the most irregular shapes (Fig. 23).

FIG. 23.

Sometimes they are angular, at other times they have a thick and a thin edge, resembling, in some degree, a "feather-edge" board; again, we find they are neither tapered to the natural growth of the tree, nor made parallel longitudinally, but vary in thickness in that direction, leading to a most serious waste of the raw material in the neglect to preserve the fullest-sized square log obtainable from the tree.

It will naturally be inferred that, being thus awkwardly shaped, it is the most difficult of all timber to measure correctly.