SPRUCE 



5512 



SPURGEON 



year was chosen president of the Imperial 

 Grand Orange Council of the World. 



Sproule was born in York County, Ont. He 

 attended the University of Michigan, and later 

 was graduated in medicine from Victoria Uni- 

 versity, Cobourg. He spent a few years in 

 Michigan in the practice of medicine, but then 

 returned to Canada and entered political life. 

 From 1878 to 1915 he was a member of the 

 House of Commons, for the last four years be- 

 ing Speaker. In December, 1915, he was called 

 to the Senate. Sproule held strong views in 

 favor of Protestant supremacy in Canada. 



SPRUCE, sproos, a group of cone-bearing 

 evergreen trees, closely related to the pines. 

 There are about thirty species, all native to the 

 northern hemisphere. Their northern limit is 

 beyond the Arctic Circle, their southern, the 



CONE OF WHITE SPRUCE 



European Pyrenees, the Himalayas of Asia and, 

 in North America, North Carolina and Ari- 

 zona. Spruces have tall, tapering trunks with 

 slender, horizontal branches, and their leaves, 

 which are stiff and pointed, are set on woody 

 projections. Their fruit is a woody 'cone. 



The Norway, one of the ornamental species, 

 is the most widely distributed and the most 

 important European spruce. It is extensively 

 planted because it grows rapidly and the wood 

 is valuable as lumber. The mature trees are 

 150 feet high. Resin and turpentine are ob- 

 tained from the wood, and the bark yields tan- 

 nin, which is used in tanning leather. 



The white and the black spruces are the most 

 widely distributed of the North American 

 spruces. The names denote the general tone 

 of bark and foliage. The white spruce ranges 

 north to Bering Strait and south to Michigan 

 and Wisconsin. Its lumber is used for interior 

 finishing and general building. However, the 

 greatest value of its wood, together with that 

 of the black spruce, is in paper manufacture. 

 These two spruces, the black having a more 

 confined range than the white, supply the larg- 

 est amount of wood pulp for this purpose (see 

 PAPER). From the resin of black spruce chew- 

 ing gum is manufactured. 



The Engelmann spruce, the white spruce of 

 the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Range, 

 is a fine tree reaching a height of 150 feet. With 

 the pines, it knows the mysteries of mountain 

 solitudes, living in altitudes nearly two miles 

 above the sea. The lumber is exceedingly 

 valuable, but generally inaccessible. 



The Sitka spruce, large forests of which are 

 found in the swamps of the tidewater regions 

 of Western United States and on the seaward 

 slopes of the Alaskan mountains, is another im- 

 portant lumber tree. The Douglas spruce, called 

 Oregon pine and Douglas fir, is, after the ma- 

 jestic sequoia, the highest tree of America, and 

 the longest timbers cut are from its straight 

 shaft. Its range covers 1,000,000 square miles, 

 from California and the damp regions of the 

 Pacific coast to Alaska. See SEQUOIA. M.W. 



SPURGE FAMILY, or EUPHORBIACEAE, 

 ufawrbea'se ee, a group of herbs, shrubs and 

 trees comprising about 4,000 species, many of 

 which are the source of very useful products. 

 Castor oil and croton oil, cassava and rubber 

 are among these products. The family includes 

 also several ornamental plants, among them 

 the poinsettia. Members of the spurge group 

 bear small, inconspicuous flowers, but these 

 sometimes have bracts (see BRACT) of very 

 brilliant hues. A biting, milky juice is a com- 

 mon characteristic of the plants. In Africa 

 there are several species that can with difficulty 

 be distinguished from cacti when not in bloom. 

 The group is widely distributed in temperate 

 and tropical regions. 



Related Subjects. For other details the 



reader is referred to the following" articles in 

 these volumes: 



Cassava Rubber and Rubber 



Castor Oil Manufacture 

 Poinsettia 



SPURGEON, CHARLES HADDON (1834-1892), 

 one of the best known English preachers of 

 the later nineteenth century. He was born at 

 Kelvedon, in Essex, studied at Colchester and 

 at Maidstone, and by the time he was fifteen 

 years old had become usher in a school at 

 Newmarket. Meanwhile he had joined the 

 Baptist Church, and had begun to preach in 

 and near Cambridge ; his youthf ulness attracted 

 large audiences and a display of vigorous inde- 

 pendence of thought succeeded in holding them. 

 In 1854 he was made pastor of the Baptist 

 chapel in New Park Street, London, and proved 

 so popular that a larger building was demanded 

 almost immediately. The great Metropolitan 

 Tabernacle, which could seat 6,000 people, was 



