Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/296

276 silky appearance, and is, on this account, in great favour with carpenters. It is very valuable for every description of joinery, where lightness may be desirable, and may be applied with advantage to many ornamental uses in both naval and civil architecture. For more substantial works of construction, it is not, however, considered to be so well adapted, as it is not sufficiently strong or durable for employment in them.

In every season's felling of the Yellow Pine trees, the straightest, longest, and finest pieces are sorted out and dressed or hewn nearly to the octagonal form; they are then called " Inch masts," and these rough spars serve for employment for the lower masts, yards, and bowsprits of ships.

It is essential to the qualification of the stick for mast, yard, or bowsprit purposes, that it be straight, sound, free from sudden bends and injurious knots. Further, it is important that the grain be straight, and especially it should be free from any spiral turn, as timber of that growth is liable to warp or twist out of shape after being worked. Nearly all the lower masts, yards, and bowsprits of large ships are made of Yellow Pine; but, for the lower masts of small vessels, and generally for the top-mast, topsail-yards, and other light spars where the strain is often sudden and great, this description of Pine is not strong enough, and is therefore seldom employed.

The employment of Yellow Pine for large spars is chiefly owing to the difficulty experienced in obtaining the stronger Pines of sufficiently large dimensions, and it is only since the introduction of the "Douglas Pine" spars from the Oregon district of Columbia, that they have been in some measure superseded. Still, the Yellow Pine wood, when made into masts, has