DESTRUCTIVE WOOD DISTILLATION 67 



and beech; baby carriages of birch, basswood, pine, maple, etc.; tent-pegs, 

 garment-hangers, clothes-pins, and tobacco-cutters' tables are made of birch, 

 maple, elm, ash, and beech. Whip butts are made exclusively of birch; canes 

 and umbrellas of birch, mahogany, ebony, and hickory. The more valuable 

 kinds of wood are used for fancy cases, cemetery-boards, and trays. Red cedar 

 is made into plugs, bungs, and spiles, with a certain quantity of tulip used for 

 the same purpose. Willow is used for artificial limbs. It is the only willow 

 reported. Spruce is employed in many kinds of work such as cloth-boards, 

 ironing-boards, cemetery-boards, tent- and awning-poles, etc. 



The price paid, $26.62 per thousand feet board measure, is a fairly high 

 average, only eight industries reporting higher prices. 



The field of trade is mostly Canadian. 



Destructive Wood Distillation 



At the time the information on the wood-using industries of Quebec was 

 collected, destructive wood distillation still occupied a comparatively low rank 

 among the wood-using industries of the province. It has since developed con- 

 siderably, the need of acetone for the manufacture of explosives having hastened 

 the development of the industry. If considered from the point of view of the 

 material consumed, it would now take fourth place among the different wood- 

 using industries of the province. 



There are now eleven destructive wood distillation plants established in 

 Canada, four of them situated in the province of Quebec. These latter 

 consume about 144 cords of wood per day, or 45,000 cords (24,930,000 feet board 

 measure) per year. It is estimated that the total consumption for Canada is 

 over 500 cords per day. 



The woods used in the province of Quebec are maple, beech, and birch 

 with a small quantity of other hardwoods. The proportions of these different 

 woods are approximately as follows: maple and beech each 37| per cent, and 

 birch 25 per cent. The raw material is cut in lengths of 48 to 52 inches in the 

 form of cord wood, and is seasoned for a year or more in order to dry it out. 

 A cord of wood ready for distillation weighs about 3,700 pounds. 



The products of these crude distillation plants are gases, crude wood alcohol, 

 acetate of lime, creosote oils, hardwood tar, and charcoal. The gases and hard- 

 wood tar are burnt under the retorts, part of the creosote oil is also burnt while 

 part is sold in the form of oil. A new use has recently been found for the oils, 

 as some of them have been demonstrated, as a result of experiments made by the 

 Forest Products Laboratories of the Forestry Branch in co-operation with the 

 Mines Department, to be suitable for the flotation process of extracting ores. 



Crude wood alcohol is refined by fractional distillation to produce methyl 

 alcohol and methyl acetone or acetone-alcohol solvent in various grades to suit 

 market conditions. Formaldehyde is also manufactured from the methyl 

 alcohol. Acetate of lime is sometimes exported as such, but for the most part 

 is converted into acetone as a solvent in cordite manufacture or into acetic acid, 

 a portion of which is further converted into acetic anhydride and methyl acetate. 



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