Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/273

XXX.] reaches to a height of 80 to 130 feet, with a circumference of 3 to 5 feet. It may also be found upon most of the mountainous parts of the North of Europe, and is abundant in North America. The Spruce Fir is an evergreen, and assumes in open ground a beautiful pyramidal form, with the lower branches drooping nearly to the ground; the leaves are solitary and very short, and the cones long and pendulous, with the scales thin at the edges. It will thus be easily distinguished from the Pines, which have their leaves clustered in twos or threes.

The wood is white in colour, straight and even in the grain, tough, light, elastic, and more difficult to work than Pine, owing chiefly to the excessive hardness of the small knots which are frequently found in it. When cut into deals it is somewhat disposed to warp, unless carefully weighted in the stacks or piles during the process of seasoning. The shrinkage is inconsiderable, and the sap, though generally only of moderate thickness, varies from half-an-inch, in some trees, to 2 or 3 inches in others.

The Spruce Firs are not suitable for the best-finished carpenters' or joiners' work, but for framing and the coarser descriptions of work it may be used with advantage, and also in ships for any of the fitments in store-rooms, for lockers, shelves, mess-tables, &c.

The trees are generally straight, and being strong as well as elastic, they are admirably suited for making the small spars required for ships and boats. They are also in great request for ladders and scaffold poles, and for stage-making in ship-yards.

Norway spars are known under the following designations, and are classified for the navy contracts according to their size, thus:—