Cairns, Hugh

MACCALMONT, Earl of, born in County Down, Ireland, in 1819. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Was returned to Parliament for Belfast in 1852; became Q. C. in 1856, Solicitor-General in 1858, and Attorney-General under Lord Derby in 1866. Was also made a Judge of Appeal, and the title of Baron was conferred upon him in 1867. He became Lord Chancellor in 1868 and again in 1874, and was created Viscount Garmoyle and Earl Cairns in 1878. As a lawyer and Parliamentary debater he was noted, and also as a philanthropist. Died April 2, 1885. Calamandar Wood, n. (Joinery.) A highly valuable cabinet wood, resembling rosewood, but much more beautiful and durable. It is the product of diospy ros hirsute, a species of the genus which produces ebony, and is a native of Southern Hindostan and Ceylon. The wood is very dense and difficult to work, and takes an exquisite polish. Veneers of C. W. are of unusual beauty, dark wavings and blotches, almost black, being gracefully disposed over a delicate fawn-colored ground. This tree has been so wastefully felled by the Dutch, and afterward by the English, that it has become very rare. Its name is belleved to be a corruption of Coromandel wood.