HARDWOOD RECORD 



33 



the ordiuary avenues of trade. Those who look for finely figured 

 woods cannot afford to wait for such material to be offered, but must 

 seek it where it is likely to be found. It is not unusual for large 

 manufacturers of fixtures to keep buyers in the field, whose business 

 it is to watch for bargains in choice material, and to anticipate wants 

 as far in the future as possible. Figured stock of extra widths is 

 nearly always in demand in the fixture factory, because there are so 

 many places where it can be used to advantage. 



As already stated, fixtures are generally divided into several classes, 

 depending on the use intended, such as stores, banks, offices, saloons, 

 and barber shops. Each class consists of several articles of 

 numerous sizes and shapes. This may be illustrated by a list of 

 articles and pieces which make up the saloon fixture class. It is 

 often difficult to draw the line between fixtures and furniture, for one 

 gi-adually merges into the other. 



The two most prominent articles in the fixture equipment of a 

 saloon are the counter and the back bar. The back bar is behind the 

 counter, and is usually the most highly finished piece of woodwork 

 in the place. It is nearly always equipped with mirrors set in frames 

 which display more or less artistic workmanship. Styles are as various 

 as the tastes of the proprietor who buys what he thinks will suit his 

 purpose and purse best. The real designing, however, devolves on the 

 manufacturer. Xew designs originate with him oftener than with the 

 man who will purchase the article. The maker studies his field and 

 produces the best articles that will sell, and the purchaser selects the 

 best that he can afford to buy. Back bars are often works of real 

 art, equalling the finest cabinets founc| anywhere, and displaying the 

 best inlay and carved work. The manufacturer who studies the 

 conditions of his trade, frequently impresses upon his prospective pur- 

 chasers the advantage of attractive equipment, because it excites less 

 unfavorable criticism of the saloon than when Unattractive fittings 

 are used. 



Back bars are made in any length desired by the purchaser, but 

 the usual range is from twelve to thirty feet. The counter is the 

 front part, or the bar proper, and though entirely separate in con- 

 struction from the back bar, the two are matched in length, material, 

 and workmanship, and constitute a single piece of equipment. The 



case of a piano presents no higher order of workmanship and displays 

 no finer woods than some of the bar equipments. 



Other saloon fixtures are office or wine room equipments, usually 

 consisting of wood panels, frames, and glass, and not reaching to 

 the ceiling; front cross partitions, made in the same styles as the 

 foregoing; window screens, made of glass and panel work; display 

 back bars where bottles are shovm in racks and on shelves. Some of 

 the display bars are equipped with iceboxes and serve as refrigerators. 

 Other articles of equipment are coil boxes which are small refrigera- 

 tors; workboards or tanks for bar counters, which sometimes combine 

 appliances for washing glasses and arrangements for packing bottled 

 goods in ice ; coolers of large size fitted with various appliances to 

 answer special purposes; sideboards containing cooling box arrange- 

 ments; buffets constructed with cooling boxes; lunch counters; display 

 tobacco and cigar show cases; tobacco wall cases; bottle cases; bar 

 screens; summer doors; office railings; and numerous styles and kinds 

 of settees, benches, and wall seats. 



About this point the line between fixtures and furniture in saloon 

 equipment may be drawn, so far as woodwork is concerned. Chairs, 

 stands, and tables are furniture unless made specially to fit certain 

 places, in which case they may be classed as fixtures. 



The artistic effect is improved if all the fixtures in a room harmonize 

 in style and color. Contrasts are not generally desired. Mahogany 

 matches mahogany, oak goes with oak. Patchwork may be in good 

 taste for crazy quilts, but not in fine wood combinations. 



The problem of seasoning wood must be closely studied in the 

 fixture factory because many of the articles manufactured are large, 

 consisting of broad pieces and heavy posts, and any shrinking, swell- 

 ing, warping and checking after the work is done would be very 

 injurious. The dift'erent kinds of wood employed cannot be given the 

 same treatment, and the manufacturer is obliged to use constant care, 

 and to study the seasoning question systematically. Some woods pass 

 through the long, slow air-drying process; some are finished in the 

 kiln ; and others are subjected to the action of steam. Every successful 

 manufacturer accumulates experiences of his own which are of great 

 value to him and are regarded as the secrets on which he buOt much 

 of his success. 



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Tree Records of Climatic Changes 



Few facts are better known than that the growth of trees responds 

 to surrounding conditions; is at times rapid, and again is slow; and 

 that the annual rings, by varying between wide and narrow, present a 

 record of changes in conditions from year to year or from period to 

 period. To a certain extent, a tree 's history is preserved in its rings 

 of growth. 



That much can be safely asserted, but in going beyond that, as 

 Ellsworth Huntington has done in his claim that trees supply records, 

 not only of their own history, but of human history over widely 

 separate regions of the earth, there is danger of following a theory 

 much further than facts warrant. His theory is built on a strange 

 mixture of fact and fiction, and unfortunately, fiction seems to hold 

 the most prominent place. He starts with the admitted claim that 

 most trees which have reached considerable age have had periods 

 of rapid and of slow growth, and he attempts to show that climatic 

 conditions of regions geographically distinct are recorded in the 

 growth rings of trees; in other words, that a tree on one side of the 

 world will record changes in climate of a country on the other side 

 of the world. The particular point which he selects as a beginning 

 for his argument is that the three-years drought in Palestine, in the 

 reign of Ahab, 870 B. C, is recorded in the rings near the hearts of 

 the oldest bigtrees of California. He enlarges from that point, and 

 attempts to show — rather to assert, for he does not show — that the 

 same bigtrees contain records as old as the Trojan war and that 

 they prove that some of the historic (and traditional) events connected 

 with ancient peoples were really due to climatic changes in Asia, 



Africa, and Europe, and that the venerable trees of California have 

 preserved the records. 



This might be dismissed as a clever piece of romancing if it were 

 not indorsed and fathered by no less authority than the United States 

 government. The Department of the Interior has printed it and offers 

 the pamphlet — "The Secret of the Bigtrees" — for sale at five cents 

 ;■■ copy. It thus becomes a government publication though the author 

 is not in the government employ, but is a professor at Yale, and 

 the expense of his investigations in California was paid by Andrew 

 Carnegie. Professor Huntington had previously published works on 

 climatic changes in Palestine and other Asiatic countries. He is thus 

 entitled to serious consideration, and to the presumption that he 

 speaks with authority. The pamphlet is beautifully illustrated and is 

 much more finely printed than the average government bulletin. 



Two summers were spent by Professor Huntington in Fresno and 

 Tulare counties, California, where lumbermen have been cutting the 

 bigtrees for some years. He counted the growth rings in 450 stumps, 

 one of which was 3,150 years old, three exceeded 3,000 years, and 79 

 ^vere over 2,000 years. A study of the rings of these stumps devel- 

 oped the data on which he worked out his conclusion that climatic 

 changes in western Asia for 3,000 years have been directly connected 

 with California. While the evidence appears to have convinced him, 

 it must be confessed that it will fall considerably short of convincing 

 some other people. 



He begins very properly with a personal account of the work in the 

 woods. This part of the story is replete with interest and is enlivened 



