16 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



February 10. 191» 



Chestnut 1.228,000 



Cypress 1.290,000 



Osage orange 1,309,000 



White oak 1,. 518,000 



Fremont cottonwood 1.494.000 



Mahogany 1,531,000 



Black locust 1,777,000 



Shagbark hickory 1,925,000 



Sugar maple 2,019,000 



Sweet birch 2,040,000 



Longleaf pine 2,118,000 



Mangrove 2.333,000 



Stiffness Considered in Using Wood 

 The majority of users never bother themselves with the figures show- 

 ing wood's elasticity, but they learn by experience or by hearsay, 

 the essential points in the few woods which they handle. Elasticity 

 is harder to measure and to understand than weight and strength; but, 

 none the less, it has a great deal to do vrith the utilization of wood. 

 The golf player will have his club vrith a hickory handle because of 

 that wood 's great elasticity. A blow may bend it like a rainbow and it 

 will fly straight in an instant. It possesses great toughness also, and 

 the three properties, toughness, strength, and elasticity, must be com- 

 bined in a first-class golf club. Yet, hickory is not the most elastic 

 wood in America. It is surpassed by longleaf pine, when judged by 

 laboratory tests; yet nobody wants yellow pine golf clubs. The first 



THE SPRING POLE WELL DRILLER 



Apparatus like this laid the foundations of some of the largest fortunes 



in America, in drilling the earliest oil wells. The elasticity of 



the pole remained undiminished after months of work 



blow would snap them short. That is because the pine lacks toughness 

 in combination with stiffness. But if this same longleaf pine is used 

 in large beams, like car siUs, it will likely give better service than 

 hickory, even from the standpoint of elasticity. 



The most elastic wood in the United States, if Sargent's figures 

 are correct, is the despised and ungainly mangrove that forms the 

 hydrophytic forests which fringe the southern Florida coast; whUe 

 on the dry land just above the mangrove fringe grows the least elastic 

 American wood, the golden fig, a half-parasite which hangs on or 

 leans against some other tree for support. Mangrove is twenty-one 

 per cent stiffer than shagbark hickory, fifteen per cent stiffer than 

 sugar maple, and fourteen per cent stiffer than sweet birch. But no 

 one seems to be making golf sticks or ax handles or buggy spokes of 

 mangrove. It may have been unintentionally overlooked in seeking 

 materials for these commodities, or it may be wanting in some other 

 quality and is thereby unfit for use so exacting as is required in slen- 

 der handles. 



Mangrove 's remarkable elasticity has saved it from destruction. It 

 grows in shallow water and forms a fringe along the shores where the 

 thickets stand idly and languidly enough in times of calm; but when 

 storms come from the ocean, the mangrove thickets are overrun and 

 beaten down by waves and would be torn utterly to pieces if their 

 phenomenal elasticity did not permit them to yield and spring back 

 again, and thus save themselves from being crushed. No other Ameri- 

 can tree is required to face similar attacks, and no other has been so 

 admirably fitted by nature for withstanding such assaults. Meanwhile, 

 on the high shore, out of the ocean's reach, stands the golden fig, the 

 mangrove 's neighbor, the weakest, most inelastic wood, and it has not 

 firmness to hold up its own weight. It is interesting to see two trees 

 so radically different and separated by only a few rods, the one capable 

 of meeting any adversity, the other too weak to stand alone. The 

 people of Florida, where mangrove is plentiful, use it for fuel and 

 tanbark only, and seem to be unaware that it is one of the most elastic 

 woods in the world. 



What the "Speingpole" Accomplished 



The elasticity of forest saplings laid the foundations of s^ie of 

 the largest fortunes in America. It was during the early years of the 



petroleum development and before improved machinery for drilling 

 deep wells had been invented. The heavy drill which, by being re- 

 peatedly lifted and dropped, cut the hole down hundreds of feet 

 through rock to the oU strata, was hard to lift by man power and 

 none other was in use ; so the drillers invented the ' ' springpole ' ' to 

 do the lifting. It was a sapling from four to eight inches in diameter 

 and forty to sixty feet long. It was rigged with the large end fixed 

 on the ground and held by stakes, and a short, forked post set under 

 as a fulcrum near the fixed end, with the pole projecting into the air 

 at an angle of about twenty degrees. This was the spring. The drill 

 was attached by a rope to the pole 's free end. Men with ropes would 

 jerk the pole down suddenly and the heavy drill would drop into the 

 hole and chip the rock at the bottom. The men permitted the pole to 

 spring back, lifting the drill. Thus, by repeatedly lowering the end 

 of the springpole and releasing it, the drilling proceeded, and a well 

 two hundred feet deep could be drilled in six months. The work was 

 slow, but when oil was struck, fortunes were made in a few weeks. 

 It was a common saying among the di'Ulers that a springpole never 

 lost its elasticity. It would lift a two-hundred-pound drill as quickly 

 for the fifty-thousandth time as for the first. That method long ago 

 went out of use. Steam engines now di'ill as deep in a day as the 

 springpole of 185S could drill in a month. 



The Most Advanced Use 

 Manufacturers of handles and of light vehicles make the most of 

 wood's elasticity. The difference is so great between a fine, high- 

 grade hickory ax handle and one of the common sort, that the experi- 

 enced chopper who has trained his hands to the ' ' feel ' ' of the resilient 

 hickory sapwood, loses all patience if circumstances compel him to 

 use any other. Such a handle absorbs all the jars and jolts of the 

 blow and the axman 's hands are saved from the sting of the stroke. 

 It is due to the wood's elasticity, its wonderful ability to absorl) 

 within itself the rebound of the blows. 



SEVERE TESTS OF WOODS ELASTICITY 



The archer's bow, the fishing rod and the golf stick are sportsmen's 



accessories, and the ax handle and the board rule are 



tools essential to the lumherman 



Exactly the same quality gives elastic woods their value in light 

 vehicles. The wood of which the carriage is made absorbs the shocks 

 of the road instead of passing them on to the bones of the rider. Much 

 dependence is placed in metal springs, but not all. Even the yield 

 in the wooden singletree saves the horse's shoulders from jerks. This 

 is not so important with heavy wagons where all movements are slow. 



There are persons who prefer a steam passenger coach of wood to 

 one made of steel. They claim that the ride in the wooden car is 

 smoother and less disturbed by jerks and quivers. The wooden frame 

 absorbs the inequalities of the rails and curves so that the spasmodic 

 trembling of the car is not transmitted to the passenger. Experienced 

 travelers say that in paint, pattern, and appearance the steel coach 

 may be superior, but for comfort and refined luxury the wooden car 

 has no equal. 



One might suppose that small results from elasticity are noticeable 

 from timbers as large as railroad ties; yet that is one of the most 



