Mahogany is largely used for panels, as when painted it shows a very even surface. There are two kinds, the “Spanish” and the “Honduras.” The former is unfit for the purposes of the carriage-builder. It is heavy and very difficult to work, requiring special tools for this purpose, as the edges of ordinary tools are rapidly destroyed by it. The Honduras is very much lighter and cheaper than Spanish, and the grain and colour more even. It takes the sweeps and curves required for body-work very easily. It can be procured up to 4 feet in width, straight-grained, and free from knots and blemishes. A coarse-grained species of cedar is brought from the same district as Honduras mahogany, and is sometimes used for panels which have to be covered with leather, &c. Its extreme porosity renders it unfit for the application of paint. Deal is largely used for the flooring of carriages, and for covered panels, and for any rough work that is not exposed to great wear and tear. The wide American pine is chiefly used in very thin boards to form the covered panels and roofing of carriages. Lancewood is a straight-grained, elastic wood, but very brittle when its limit of elasticity is reached. It comes from the West Indies in taper poles about 20 feet long and 6 or 8 inches diameter at the largest end. It was formerly much used for shafts, but since curved forms have been fashionable it has fallen into disuse. It can be bent by boiling, but is a very unsafe material to trust to such an important office as the shafts. American birch is a very valuable wood for flat boarding, as it can be procured up to 3 feet in width. It is of a perfectly homogeneous substance, free from rents, and with scarcely a perceptible pore. It works easily with the plane and yields a very smooth surface, and the grain does not show through the most delicate coat of paint. Its chief disadvantage is its brittleness, which will not permit of its being used for any but plane surfaces, and some care is required in nailing and screwing it.