581. The Teak-tree is a native of the dry and elevated districts of the south of India; chiefly those situated along the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, as well as of Burmah, Pegu, Java, Geylon, and other parts of the East Indies. It is of rapid growth, with a tall straight trunk, often more than 150 feet high, and copious spreading branches.

The wood of the teak-tree resembles oak in colour and lustre, and is by far the most useful timber in India. It is light, easily worked, and, though porous, is strong and durable. It requires little seasoning, and does not shrink much. It is said to afford a kind of tar, and the wood being of rather an oily nature does not injure iron. It is the best wood that can be used for carpentry or other purpose where strength and durability are required. For ship-building it is considered superior to all other timber.

According to Mr. Fincham, the teak brought from Moulmein is in various respects superior to that from Malabar. "In India, where the opportunities of comparing them have been more ample than in the dockyards of this country, the Moulmein teak is stated to be of less specific gravity, of greater flexibility, and freer from knots and rindgalls than that of Malabar; it is also of a lighter colour. It grows to an immense size in the forest, and trees are sometimes cut of 8 or 9 feet in diameter; but most of such trees being unsound, smaller ones of 18 inches diameter and under are preferred. The largest mast pieces of this teak run to about 85 feet in length and about 8 or 9 feet in girth."*

Malabar teak has also been extensively used for shipbuilding at Bombay. It grows in the teak forests along the western side of the Ghaut and adjoining mountains, where numerous streams afford water-carriage for the timber. It is stronger than the Moulmein teak. According to Dr. Roxburgh there is a variety of teak that grows on the banks of the Godavery River, the wood of which is beautifully veined, closer grained and heavier than that of the other varieties, and well adapted for furniture.

The Vindhyan teak is much superior to that of Pegu both in strength and beauty. The specific gravity is about the same, but the deeply-marked and wavy irregular veins of the Vindhyan tree afford much handsomer cabinet-wood than the straight-grained and faintly-marked timber of Pegu.†

The teak from Johore is perhaps the heaviest and strongest of the species, and is said to bo well adapted for permanent sleepers on railways, beams, piles, and engineering purposes generally. Piles in a comparatively good state of preservation exist on the site of the old town of Johore, which has been abandoned upwards of 100 years.

There is no timber so useful for the purposes of the carpenter as teak; it possesses the qualities of size, strength, and durability in an eminent degree. As regards its capabilities of resisting the attacks of worms and insects it stands unrivalled. At St. Helena, according to Mr. Hounslow, when specimens of every other kind of wood that had been scut to the island in great variety, some even strongly impregnated with poisonous substances, failed to escape the destructive jaws of the most formidable species of the white ant, the teak alone remained uninjured (see Art. 485).

* 'Outline of Ship-building.'

† Roorkee, 'Treatise on Civil Engineering,' vol. i.

The cohesive force of teak-wood varies from 13,000 to 15,000 lbs. per square inch. The weight of its modulus of elasticity is 2,167,000 lbs. per square inch, according to Barlow's experiments; and the weight of a cubic foot of dry Malabar teak is about 45 lbs., of Moulmein teak 56 lbs., and Johore teak 62 1/2 lbs.