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Natural Resources
September/October 2005
Photograph ©Mark Morosse

Romeyn B. Hough’s American Woods captures a piece of American history in a way no book has done before or since. The 14-volume set, first published in 1888, is a comprehensive manual of North American hardwoods that does not rely on illustrations. From every species, Hough took three different wafer-thin cuts—transverse, radial, and tangential—and glued them into cutouts in each page. Readers could hold the translucent wood up to the light to see its “prismatic colors.” Each volume contained 25 species. Today, a complete set is worth more than $30,000; shown here is a page from one of the sets in the environment school library.

Hough marketed the volumes to natural scientists, carpenters, and the general public. (On the front cover he suggests uses for the books, including removing the individual samples for “fancy purposes” such as “birth, holiday, and Easter cards.”) Today scans of the samples are available online, providing a window into a time when trees like the American elm were abundant and wood was a ubiquitous element of our economic and aesthetic lives.  

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