Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/234

214 shoes, and soles for shoes, these being considered far superior to any made of other descriptions of wood. It is also a most valuable article of fuel.

Beech is durable if kept wholly submerged in water or mud; it is also durable if kept quite dry, but if left exposed to the alternations of the weather, it soon becomes doated over with yellowish spots, and rapidly decays.

I had no suitable pieces available for experimental purposes, to try its transverse strength, but the tensile I ascertained by experimenting on three pieces, the average giving 4,853 lbs. per square inch; tried vertically upon four pieces the average was 3-812 tons per square inch. The specific gravity of the seasoned wood varies from 700 to 720, and averages about 705.

THE BIRCH TREE (Betula alba, or Common Birch) is found in nearly every country in Europe. In Bosnia, Turkey, however, I only met with it on the skirts of forests upon the mountains at a considerable elevation.

The European Birch grows naturally a little crooked in the stem, with light, oblique branches, slightly drooping at the extremities, and attains, sometimes, the height of 50 feet, with a diameter of 18 inches, but generally it is of very moderate dimensions. It flourishes on a poor soil in any exposed situation, and is very hardy.

The wood is of a light brown colour, moderately hard, plain and even in the grain, and is easily worked; but it is neither strong nor durable, and is therefore unfit for building purposes. Its chief uses are for cabinet work, chair-making, turnery, and light wares generally. The bark is smooth, thin, white in colour, and is used in tanning. Birch timber is imported in a round state and with the bark on from the North of Europe to our