654 MISCELLANEOUS. [Feb. 



polishing tliese petrifactions into mantlepieces, tiles, tablets, and 

 other architectural parts for which marble or slate is commonly 

 used. Petrified wood is said to be susceptible of a finer polish than 

 marble, or even onyx, the latter of M'hich it is driving from the 

 market. The raw material employed comes mostly from the forests 

 of petrified wood along the line of the Atlantic and Pacific Eailway. 

 Several other companies have also been formed to obtain concessions 

 of different portions of these forests. Geologists will regret the 

 destruction of such interesting primeval remains, and some steps 

 ought to be taken to preserve certain tracts in their original 

 state. 



Curious Effect of Veetical Wind Pressure upon a Tree. — One 

 of the strangest of cyclone freaks is recorded by a correspondent of the 

 Pittsburg Despatch. The scene of it is at Washington Court House, 

 0., and concerns an " apple tree with long, spreading, heavy branches, 

 perhaps extending to a height of twenty-five feet. It is a tree of 

 perhaps twenty-five years' growth, and undoubtedly has roots as 

 stout and almost as wide -spreading as its boughs. Its trunk is not 

 less than fifteen inches in diameter ; it was a thrifty, vigorous tree, 

 without an unsound branch, and the family have for years driven 

 their higli top buggy beneath its branches, for it shades the drive- 

 way into the yard. A short and stubby man cannot now walk 

 under it without ducking his head. Does the reader imagine it 

 was uprooted ? That might indeed seem possible, but it is not 

 true. Without breaking so much as a twig of its foliage, the atmo- 

 sphere drove that tree right down two and a half or three feet into 

 the ground. The hole enlarged about the base of the tree as it now 

 stands shows how much larger is the base that has been forced 

 beneath the surface." [We wait further explanations of this very 

 " curious effect of vertical wind pressure," and meantime suspend 

 our judgment. — Ed.] 



Increase of Strength in Timber by Seasoning, etc. — It is 

 stated as a curious fact, by a writer in the Building News, that one 

 of the properties especially conducive to durability in timber is its 

 odoriferousness — woods which are of this character being the most 

 durable. The same authority states that the increase in strength 

 due to seasoning in different woods is as follows: — White pine, 9 

 per cent.; elm, 12'3 per cent.; oak, 26*6 per cent.; ash, 44'7 per 

 cent.; beech, 61*9 per cent. Tlie comparative value of different 

 woods, in respect to crushing strength and stiffness, is thus shown : 

 Teak, 6555; English oak, 4074; ash, 3571 ; elm, 34G8 ; beech, 

 3079; mahogany, 2571; spruce, 2532; yellow pine, 2193; 

 sycamore, 1833; cedar, 700. Ptegarding the relative degree of 

 hardness, shellbark hickory stands highest, and, calling that 100, 



