THE EUROPEAN LARCH. 277 



measured 108 feet high aud 5 feet 4 inches in circum- 

 ference. 



The economic uses of the larch are numerous aud impor- 

 tant. According to Newlauds, the strength of larch timber 

 is to that of British oak as 103 to 100 ; its stiffness as 

 79 to 100 ; while its toughness is as 134 to 100. In the 

 most trying circumstances in which timber can be employed, 

 where it is alternately subjected to the influence of air and 

 water, it is the most durable wood known. Laslett states 

 on what he considers good authority that " many of the 

 houses in Venice are bu !t on larch piles, particularly 

 those of which the supports are alternately exposed to wet 

 and dry, and that many of these piles, after being in place 

 for ages, are said not to have the least appearance of 

 decay." 



At the request of the Duke of Athol, experiments with a 

 view of testing the dural)ility of the larch, were made many 

 years ago in the River Thames. The result of these experi- 

 ments is found in Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's* edition of 

 Gilpin. "Posts," he says, "of equal thickness and strength, 

 one of larch and the other of oak, were driven down facing 

 the river wall, where they were alternately covered by water 

 by the flow of the tide and left dry by its fall. This species 

 of alternation is the most trying of all circumstances for the 

 endurance of timber, and accordingly the oaken posts were 

 decayed, and were twice replaced in the course of a very few 

 years, while those that were made of larch remained altogether 

 uninjured." 



In Europe, larch is preferred to all other woods for railroad 

 sleepers, aud it is probably superior for this purpose to the 

 wood of any North American tree. Larch fence-posts are 

 also in great demand at high prices, and instances are abund- 

 ant of its great durability when thus employed. A practical 

 forester, f speaking of this tree, says : " For out-door work it 

 is considered the most durable of all descriptions of wood. 

 The lengthened period that some larch posts have stood is 

 quite surprising, some of which are known to the writer to 



* Gilpin's Forest Scenery. Edinburgh, 1834. 



t Christopher Young Michie, in Transactions of the Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society. Vol. V., part II. Edinburgh. 



