e most usual among us are black, red, and green, all of them the product of the island of Madagascar, where the natives call them indifferently hazon mainthi, q. d. black wood. The island of St Maurice, belonging to the Dutch, likewise furnishes part of the ebonies used in Europe.
Authors and travellers give very different accounts of the tree that yields the black ebony. By some of their descriptions, it should be a sort of palm-tree; by others, a cytius, &c. The most authentic of them is that of M. Flacourt, who resided many years in Madagascar as governor thereof; he assures us, that it grows very high and big, its bark being black, and its leaves resembling those of our myrtle, of a deep, dusky, green colour.
Tavernier assures us, that the islanders always take care to bury their trees, when cut down, to make them the blacker, and to prevent their splitting when wrought. F. Plumier mentions another black ebony-tree, discovered by him at St Domingo, which he calls fiprium portulace folius aculeatum ebeni materia. Candia also bears a little shrub, known to the botanists under the name of Ebenus Cretica, above described.
Pliny and Dioscorides say the best ebony comes from Ethiopia, and the worst from India; but Theophrastus prefers that of India. Black ebony is much preferred to that of other colours. The best is a jet black, free of veins and rind, very massive, astringent, and of an acid pungent taste. Its rind, infused in water, is said to purge pituita, and cure venereal disorders; whence Matthiolus took guaiacum for a sort of ebony. It yields an agreeable perfume when laid on burning coals: when green, it readily takes fire from the abundance of its fat. If rubbed again a stone, it becomes brown. The Indians make statues of their gods, and ECA
EBORACUM and sceptres for their princes, of this wood. It was first brought to Rome by Pompey, after he subdued Mithridates. It is now much less used among us than anciently; since the discovery of so many ways of giving other hard woods a black colour.
As to the green ebony, besides Madagascar and St Maurice, it likewise grows in the Antilles, and especially in the isle of Tobago. The tree that yields it is very bushy; its leaves are smooth, and of a fine green colour. Beneath its bark is a white blea, about two inches thick; all beneath which, to the very heart, is a deep green, approaching towards a black, tho' sometimes streaked with yellow veins. Its use is not confined to mosaic work: it is likewise good in dyeing, as yielding a fine green tincture. As to red ebony, called also grenadilla, we know little of it more than the name.
The cabinet-makers, inlayers, &c. make pear-tree and other woods pass for ebony, by giving them the black colour thereof. This done by a few washes of a hot decoction of galls; and when dry, adding writing ink thereon, and polishing it with a stiff brush, and a little hot wax; and others heat or burn their wood black. See Dyeing.(anc. geog.), a famous city of the Brigantes in Britain, the residence of Septimius Severus and Constantius Chlorus, and where they both died; a Roman colony; and the station of the Legio Sexta Victrix. Now York. W. Long. 5°. Lat. 54°.