EUROPEAN TIMBER 37 



Planks are pieces of various lengths and thicknesses, 

 11 inches wide and over, and 12 ft. and upwards in 

 length. 



Boards or flooring are pieces 1 inch thick and under. 

 Although these names, deals, planks, and battens, are still 

 used, they have not the same significance as when Baltic 

 timber was confined to the sizes 7, 9, and 11 inches, 

 and a reference to Appendix, p. 330, will show the almost 

 unlimited variety of scantlings from which the timber 

 buyer can now make his selection in this wood. 



Great quantities of spruce, especially from the smaller- 

 sized trees, are manufactured into pulp for paper. 



Fir is a name indiscriminately applied to the pines, 

 spruces, and firs ; they come from the same districts in the 

 Baltic. The Northern and Scotch pine are often called 

 fir ; the timber is used for the same purposes and the 

 quality is similar to spruce, from which it is not easily 

 distinguishable, except by the absence of resin ducts. 



Silver Fir (Abies pcctinata), imported as " Swiss pine," is 

 employed chiefly for the sounding boards of pianos and the 

 bellies of violins. The colour is a pinkish white, light, soft, 

 porous, silky in texture, elastic, easily worked, but not 

 durable if exposed to wet and dry ; it is sometimes used as 

 piles on the Continent, and is fairly satisfactory for pro- 

 tecting river banks from scour ; it is one of the most 

 sonorous of woods. It is also much used for toy-making, 

 carving, and for packing cases, is largely imported from 

 the Tyrol, and is used in its native district for fencing, 

 internal work, general carpentry, pulp, and charcoal. The 

 well-known Strasburg turpentine is obtained from this tree. 



Larch (Larix Europea), Fig. 8, a tree which attains a 

 height of 60 to 100 ft., grows rapidly, and is useful from an 



