Excerpt from The Timbers of British Guiana: A Report Upon the Collection Made by the Hon. A. G. Bell The identification of wood by means of the structure is not easy, hence the minuteness of detail into which we have entered. To some this may appear redundant, but when small specimens have to be examined, the most trifling detail is often of great service. On the other hand, the comparison of the structure of two specimens is very easy and convincing. All that is necessary is to trim the end (transverse section) of a plank of each, with a sharp knife or plane, to a cleanly-cut surface, and to hold them side by side in the hand, so that a portion of each may be brought under the lens at the same time. Examination of first one specimen and then another is misleading, and should never be relied upon. Even when thin sections are examined under a microscope they should be arranged so that both are upon one slide and appear in the field of vision at the same time. Every item in the following descriptions of the woods in this collection, appears in the same order, and may be found readily without reading the whole. The individual features of one wood may be checked against another, word by word. The phrases employed are the same for similar things, and each term bears the same value throughout. 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.