Author: Edward Balfour

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2016-10-19

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 9781334004490

Excerpt from The Timber Trees, Timber and Fancy Woods, as Also, the Forests, of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia It will also be seen that I have largely given the vernacular synonyms by which the trees are said to be known to the various people of 'these countries and in the several locali ties ia which they grow and I have done this because some inquirers put a high value on such synonyms. But, a reference to the notices under black wood, ebony, rose wood, san dal wood, iron wood, poon wood, red wood, &c., &c., will satisfy the mind that commercial names have relation merely to the physical appearances or characters of the woods, and with regard to local names, it is not probable that uneducated and often little civilized nations can be more suggestful in their designations and I may here refer to the synonyms under Tree and to the article Sumatra, to the names applied by many of the Malaya-nesian nations and races in the Archipelago from Sumatra eastwards to Borneo, to show that the name for one of our most famed woods of India, the Poon, merely signifies, in those wide regions, any tree. It is said that the island of Luzon got its name from a voyager asking the name of that island of a woman who was grinding corn with a hand-mill. Imagining that the, to her, indispensable hand-mill was the object of his inquiries, she answered Luzon and gave the name by which the island is now known. Many similar errors must ever occur in the inter-communications of educated and uneducated people, and though useful to the extent of directing inquirers, I deprecate any unbounded reliance on verna cular names.' 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.