the timber of Swietenia Mahogani (Linnaeus); Natural Order, Cedrelaceae. The mahogany tree is a native of South America, Cuba, St Domingo, Jamaica, and especially of Honduras, and is one of the most magnificent and valuable of tropical timber trees. It grows rapidly, yet its timber is very hard and heavy; its height is from 80 to 100 feet, with usually a very straight stem of great diameter. It is commonly imported in logs from 2 to 3 feet square, of various lengths, not often exceeding 18 feet. That called Spanish mahogany is usually smaller, the logs being generally about 2 feet square by about 10 feet in length. The grain, or curl, as it is called, is sometimes so exceedingly beautiful that it raises the value of a log to an extraordinary price. More than L1,000 has been realized several times by the sale of a single log. Mahogany was introduced into England in 1595. By some the dis- Mahomet. covery of its value is attributed to the carpenter of Sir Walter Raleigh's ship; and another account states that it was first employed for cabinet-work in England in 1720, by one Wollaston, a cabinet-maker in London, who being accidentally requested to make some small articles from this wood for Dr Gibbons, a physician in that city, discovered its rare properties, which, on being made public, soon rendered both the workman and the material highly famous. It is chiefly imported from Honduras and Cuba. The average imports of the last five years are 38,000 tons, worth about £500,000.

MAHOMET I., son of Bayazid I., was originally governor of the town and district of Amasia, and, after the death of his elder brothers, became Sultan of the Ottomans, A.D. 1413. He restored the Ottoman empire, extended his conquests into Bosnia, Servia, and Wallachia in Europe, and, after a reign of nine years, died A.D. 1421.

MAHOMET II., Sultan of Turkey, was born at Adrianople in 1430, and succeeded his father, Amurat II., in 1451. Bent upon overturning the Greek empire, he broke the truce that subsisted between the Turks and the Emperor Constantine, and in April 1453 besieged Constantinople with a large fleet and an army of 300,000 men. The Greeks, though only 10,000 strong, barricaded the mouth of their harbour with strong iron chains, and offered a determined resistance. The emperor himself was slain, fighting hand to hand with the besiegers. At last, however, by conveying a part of his fleet overland into the harbour, and by mounting a bridge of boats with cannon, Mahomet was able, after a siege of fifty-three days, to storm the city on the 29th May. Three days devoted by his soldiers to massacre and pillage, rendered Constantinople desolate, and seemed to defeat Mahomet's design of making it his capital. Nevertheless, by granting to the Greeks religious toleration and the use of one-half of the churches that had survived the sack, he induced many of them to re-inhabit the city. He also restored its fortifications, and erected at the mouth of the Hellespont the forts called the Dardanelles. In 1456 Mahomet, advancing westward, laid siege to Belgrade, but was defeated and forced to retreat by John Hunnades, general to Ladislav, King of Hungary. More successful in his invasion of Greece, he subdued Corinth and the Morea. In 1461 he captured Trebizond, and thus overthrew the dynasty of the Comneni. The islands of the Archipelago were added to his conquests in the following year. The Albanians, under their king Scanderbeg, had for some time successfully checked the advance of the Turks; but after the death of that prince in 1466, they too were subdued. From the republic of Venice Mahomet wrested Negropont in 1470. After taking the Crimea in 1475, he invaded Italy in 1480. No sooner, however, had he captured Otranto than he received the news that part of his forces had been foiled in their attempt to take Rhodes, by the knights who had fled thither after the sack of Constantinople. While he was preparing to retrieve that defeat he died in 1481. He was buried at Constantinople, and over his grave was written the following epitaph:—"I would have taken Rhodes and subdued Italy."