it became an object of
great curiosity. Before this time, mahogany had been used partially in
the West Indies for ship-building, but this new discovery of its
beauty soon brought it into general use for making furniture.

_Crevice_, a rent, a crack.

_Ballast_, the heavy matter placed in the hold of a vessel
to keep it steady.

What is India Rubber or Caoutchouc?

An elastic, resinous substance, produced from a tree, growing
abundantly at Cayenne, Quito, and other parts of South America; and
also in some parts of the Indies. The tree which produces it is
large, straight, and about sixty feet high. There is, however, a small
species found in Sumatra and Java, and some of the neighboring
islands.

How is the Caoutchouc obtained from the Tree?

By making incisions in the trunk of the tree, from which the fluid
resin issues in great abundance, appearing of a milky whiteness at
first, but gradually becoming of a dark reddish color, soft and
elastic to the touch.

To what use is this substance put?

The Indians make of it boots, shoes, bottles, flambeaux, and a species
of cloth. Amongst us it is combined with sulphur, forming the
vulcanized rubber of commerce, which is used for many purposes. A
greater proportion of sulphur, produces vulcanite, a hard black
substance, resembling jet.

_Flambeaux_, torches burnt to give light.

What is Sponge?

A marine substance, found adhering to rocks and shells under the
sea-water, or on the sides of rocks near the shore. Sponge was
formerly imagined by some naturalists to be a vegetable production; by
others, a mineral, or a collection of sea-mud, but it has since been
discovered to be the fabric and habitation of a species of worm, or
polypus.

What do you mean by Polypus?

A species of animals called Zoophytes, by which are meant beings
having such an admixture of the characteristics of both plants and
animals, as to render it difficult to decide to which division they
properly belong. They are animal in substance, possessed indeed of a
stomach, but without the other animal characteristics of
blood-vessels, bones, or organs of sense; these creatures live chiefly
in water, and are mostly incapable of motion: they increase by buds or
excrescences from the parent zoophyte, and if cut off will grow again
and multiply; each part becoming a perfect animal. Myriads of the
different species of zoophytes reside in small cells of coral, sponge,
&