The sandal-wood tree is most usually found in hilly districts and rocky situations; and, when growing on low land, is of a degenerated quality. This latter circumstance is known to the Chinese; for, at Singapore, a Chinese merchant observed, that the sandal-wood found growing on the rocky mountains contains the greatest quantity of oil, and is of more value than that which grows in low situations and rich soil, as the latter is found to have degenerated. On asking him from whence he derived his information, he stated, “from Chinese books.” At the Friendly Islands they use the wood for scenting their cocoa-nut oil, and a piece of the wood is considered a valuable present by the chiefs; they procure it occasionally from the Fidji Islands, and call it Ahi Fidji. The tree will not thrive at Tongatabu. The species found at the island of Erromanga (New Hebrides) has ovate, entire, smooth, petioled leaves, of a light-green colour above, whitish and distinctly veined underneath; some of the leaves varied by being pointed. It is a tree of irregular and slow growth; it attains the height of about eight feet without, and thirty feet with branches, and about two feet in diameter. I always remarked, however, that after attaining a moderate size, it was invariably found rotten in the heart. Sandal-wood is very heavy, sinks in water, and the part of the tree which contains the essential oil (according to Cartheuser, one pound of the wood will yield two drachms of the oil) on which the agreeable odour depends, is the heart, the other portions of the tree being destitute of any fragrance: this portion is surrounded by a lighter wood of some thickness, denominated the sap, which is carefully removed from the heart-wood. Sandal-wood is sold by weight, and varies in price, according to the size and quality, from three to twenty dollars and upwards the pecul (one hundred and thirty-three pounds.) When young, the wood has a whitish colour, and possesses but little fragrance; as it increases in age it becomes of a yellowish colour, and when old of a brownish red colour, and at that period is most valued, from containing the greatest quantity of that essential oil on which its fragrance depends. It is considered that the wood is never attacked by insects: this opinion is erroneous, as I have seen the nidus of some species formed in it.