EUEOPEAN TIMBER 35 



the heartwood. In the poor qualities it is the timber 

 largely used by the " jerry builder," and in a good deal 

 which owners would not call by that name ; inferior in 

 strength and durability to redwood, unfitted for good 

 exterior work, suitable for a cheap description of interior 

 work such as shelves, common tables, flooring and panelling, 

 it is used for all the classes of interior work for which the 

 better class redwood is used, and is probably quite as 

 much used as redwood in ordinary house building ; some of 

 the best of it is very good, but it is liable to shrink if less 

 than an inch thick. A large quantity is used for scaffold 

 poles and pit props in mines, of to 8 ft. in length 

 and 6 to 8 inches in diameter. It is much valued as one 

 of the resonance woods for the bellies of fiddles and 

 violins, as the sycamore and maple are for the backs. Not 

 only is there a large trade in planed white as well as 

 yellow boards, which are also imported tongued and 

 grooved, but a great quantity of manufactured joinery, 

 doors and door frames, window frames, etc., comes from 

 Norway and Sweden. The best of the Norwegian timber is 

 used up for flooring and planed goods and manufactured 

 joinery. Spruce forms much the larger proportion of the 

 timber used in the toy trade of Austria and the Tyrol. 

 Good deals, either yellow or white, should be bright in 

 colour and close in grain ; a dull colour and open porous 

 grain of a woolly character betoken poor wood. Spruce is 

 hardly distinguishable from fir except by the presence of 

 resin ducts, which are wanting in the latter. 



The usual trade terms for Baltic timber are as follows : 

 Logs or baulks, various lengths and sizes, up to 



40 ft. long. 



Battens and deals, various lengths, 4 to 9 inches 



wide and 2 to 4 inches thick ; average lengths about 



18ft. 



D 2 



