MAHOGANY, a genus of plants belonging to the class decandra, and in the natural system arranged under the 54th order, mifcellance. See BOTANY and MATERIA MEDICA Index.

The first use to which mahogany was applied in England, was to make a box for holding candles. Dr Gibbons, an eminent physician in the latter end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, had a brother, a West India captain, who brought over some planks of this wood as ballast. As the Doctor was then building a house in King-street, Covent Garden, his brother thought they might be of service to him. But the carpenters, finding the wood too hard for their tools, they were laid aside for a time as useless. Soon after, Mrs Gibbons, wanting a candle-box, the Doctor called on his cabinet-maker to make him one of some wood that lay in his garden. Wollaston, the cabinet-maker also complained that it was too hard. The Doctor said he must get stronger tools. The candle-box was made and approved; insomuch, that the Doctor then insisted on having a bureau made of the same wood, which was accordingly done; and the fine colour, polish, &c. were so pleasing, that he invited all his friends to come and see it. Among them was the duchess of Buckingham. Her Grace begged some of the same wood of Dr Gibbons, and employed Wollaston to make her a bureau also; on which the fame of mahogany and Mr Wollaston was much raised, and things of this sort became general.