236 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



Other powder companies buy their charcoal in other 

 states, the amount used being shown by the fact that one 

 Illinois company in normal times imports over 5,000 

 bushels per month from Pennsylvania. This is explained 

 doubtless by the fact that operators of retorts and ovens 

 in the East can undersell the men operating brick kilns 

 here because the former secure in the distillation process 

 not only charcoal as a by-product but also wood alcohol 

 and lime acetate for which there is a good demand in the 

 market. 



FURNITURE AND WOOD-USING INDUSTRIES 



According to the Secretary of the American Walnut 

 Manufacturer's Association, the city of Rockford ranks 

 first in the United States as a consumer of walnut lumber, 

 with Chicago second by a very fair margin. At Rockford 

 most of the walnut goes into the manufacture of furniture 

 but in Chicago it is used by a wide range of industries, 

 among which furniture is the leading one. The total of 

 all kinds of lumber and logs used by the Rockford furni- 

 ture manufacturers has not yet been compiled, but pres- 

 ent figures stand at 11,500,000 board feet annually. The 

 leading species used consist of cedar and mahogany, oak, 

 walnut, gum, birch and basswood, with considerable 

 quantities of rock and red elm, used for crating. A very 

 large amount of this lumber comes from the southern 

 states, the local supply cutting very little figure. 



The consumption by wood-using industries in Chicago 

 in the year 1910 was 1,116,855,120 board feet, out of a 

 total of about 2,500,000,000 board feet of lumber shipped 

 into that city. This large amount used by factories of 

 various sorts did not include material used for cross ties, 

 telegraph and telephone poles, mine timbers, shingles, 

 lath, or rough lumber used in construction. Rock Island 

 also used about 30,000,000 feet of lumber in her factories 

 outside of that sold by local lumber yards, while factories 

 in Peoria, Quincy, Aurora, Kankakee, Bloomington and 

 other cities are yet to be heard from. 



VENEERS 



With the growing scarcity and high prices of logs of 

 the larger sizes in this country, we are coming gradually 



