Life and Work-I
' Tropical Timbers from Siam'
Captain F. McDERMOTT
This series goes on, never losing in interest or in usefulness of purpose. Schools learn from it not only the important product of a particular place, but all about that place. Something of its scenery, climate, fauna, flora, its native people and their customs.
Today, Captain F. McDermott is to tell them about the long journey-sometimes lasting for five years-of a log from the tropical forests of Siam many hundreds of miles through forests, clearings, rivers, and towns to the timber yards where it is kept before being shipped to other ports, or for building.
Captain McDermott will describe a stroll through a tropical forest, and tell you about trees so hard that they will blunt a chisel, and trees so soft that they are nothing but dust. He will talk about the value of teak and other tropical hard woods ; about the white ant, the enemy of man ; about elephants that think, and white elephants that are not white.