The American Woods

Romeyn Beck Hough’s work The American Woods is a collection of more than 1000 paper-thin wood samples representing more than 350 varieties of North American tree. Between 1888 and 1913, Hough published a total of thirteen volumes of the work. The wafer-thin slivers — which would glow like a slide when held up to the light — were prepared using a slicing machine of Hough’s own design and which he patented in 1886.

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