Note 49 — Chapter XVIII
Reading edition
Among woods of extraordinary hardness is the magconó (Xanthostemon verdugonianus naves). This wood is so hard that if a nail be driven into its heart and it be afterward sawn apart, one does not observe where the saw strikes the nail, and it said that both substances are of equal hardness. Father Pastells asserts that he has seen bits of this wood that have been converted into real flint after only twenty-five years. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 660.)