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for fence-posts, rails, telegraph poles, railway-ties, wine-casks, tanning 
and water-tanks, coffins and every purpose where durability is a 
greater requisite than strength. A novice in the country districts of 
California wonders why farmers wear gloves when moving a fence, 
but after a few of the sharp, needle-like splinters of the split rails 
have entered his hand and festered there, he wears gloves himself. 
Redwood shingles are coming into favor in the more eastern States 
which now use a large quantity of redwood timber. 
The softness of the wood is the only objection that can be urged 
against its use in interior decorations. It is of a beautiful, clear 
light red color, and is susceptible of a good polish, but the ordinary 
varieties are so soft that the nail, even the knuckle, will make a dent. 
Yet, as it shrinks and swells less than any other wood, and neither 
checks nor warps, it is better fitted even for internal finish than many 
woods which are more used in the Atlantic States- The objection of 
softness does not apply to the knots or gnarls which grow on some 
tree trunks, and sometimes attain a diameter of eight or ten feet. 
These knots are full of tiny bird-eyes, are very hard, and, like bird's 
eye maple, are well adapted for ornamental cabinet-work, whether 
used solid or as veneer. Another ornamental variety much esteemed 
in California is the ** curly " redwood, in which the grain is wavy 
throughout. 
The best part of the redwood tree is the butt, the very part which 
it is, or rather was, the custom to leave in the ground to a height of 
several feet. Dark red, comparatively hard, heavy and close grained, 
these butts are indestructible by weather or by fire. 
Redwood is a very poor fuel, for it contains little or no pitch. 
When dry and cut small it takes fire very easily, so much so that it 
makes good kindling, but a stoveful burns away in little time with 
little production of heat. 
The wood of this Sequoia is much heavier than the wood of the 
Sequoia giganiea or big tree, the bark, usually deep-seamed, is often 
12 to i8 inches thick: the cones or fruits are not more than an^ inch 
or an inch and a quarter, and the leaves small, flat, sharp-point fd, 
green above, and arranged in a row on each side of the twig which 
hears them. — Southern Lumberr7ian. 
Fossil Flora of the Rocky Mountain Region of Canada. — Dr. G. M. 
Dawson, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, de- 
scribes a remarkable Jurasso Cretaceous flora recently discovered by 
him in the Rocky Mountain regions of Canada, and also the inter- 
mediate groups of plants between this and the Middle Cretaceous. 
The oldest of these floras is found in beds which it is proposed to 
call the Kootanie group, from a tribe of Indians of the name which 
hunted over that part of the Rocky Mountains between the 49th and 
52d parallels. Plants of this age have been found in the branches of 
the Old Man River, on the Martin Creek, at Coal Creek, and at one 
locality far to the northwest on the Suskwa River. The containing 
focks are sandstones, shales and conglomerates, with seams of coal, 
m some places anthracitic. The plants found are conifers, cycads 
and ferns, the cycads being especially abundant and belonging to the 
genera Dioonites. Zamifes. Podozamites and Anomozamites. Some of 
