44 USES OF COMMERCIAL WOODS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



For spars a length of 114 feet and a diameter of 38 inches were 

 often specified. When Philadelphia became an important mast mar- 

 ket, the timbers being floated down the Delaware River, it was cus- 

 tomary to regulate the price by the diameter in inches 12 feet from 

 the ground. A common price was $1.50 for every inch in diameter. 



The figureheads for New England-built vessels were generally 

 carved from white pine, and for this purpose the best parts of large, 

 old trees were selected called pumpkin pine, from the fact that 

 the grain of the wood was highly homogeneous and could be cut in 

 all directions, like a pumpkin, a quality appreciated by the carver. 



Pine suitable for masts had become scarce by the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century in many regions where excellent timbers of that 

 kind were formerly cut. In 1805 Michaux did not see a single white- 

 pine tree suitable for a mast for a 600-ton vessel during a journey 

 of 600 miles from Philadelphia to Boston and beyond. 



White pine has been and still is valuable for many parts of boat 

 and ship construction, besides masts, yards, and bowsprits. In 1750 

 white-pine canoes, hewed from single trunks, were common at Al- 

 bany, N. Y., and they were counted good for 8 to 12 years of service. 1 

 Yellow poplar was the chief canoe wood farther south and west. 

 White-pine batteaux plied the Hudson, and. doubtless other eastern 

 rivers, before the French and Indian War. Albany was an impor- 

 tant center of the white-pine lumber trade, and as late as 1806 the 

 product was hauled on sleds from Skeensborough to that place, a 

 distance of 70 miles. 



At the present time the high price of white pine excludes it from 

 some of its former uses in shipbuilding. Douglas fir from the Pacific 

 coast is largely substituted in spars and yards. In smaller vessels, 

 particularly in yachts, it is a favorite deck material, and it is used 

 in fishing dories. 



BRIDGES. 



Within the white pine region it has been a valuable and much- 

 used bridge timber. Its breaking strength is 45 per cent under that 

 of longleaf pine of the South, and where strain is great it is inferior 

 to longleaf for bridges. There are, however, many parts of bridge 

 construction where great strength is not the chief requisite, and in 

 such places white pine finds its best use. It has sufficient strength, if 

 employed in adequate sizes, for any part of small and medium-sized 



1 The Indians of New York were using white-pine canoes when Europeans began to 

 occupy the country, and had probably done so long before. The National Museum at 

 Washington, D. C., has a portion of a pine canoe which is believed to be prehistoric. 

 It was discovered in 1893, buried in mud near Lake Petonia, Chenango County, N. Y. 

 It shows charred wood, and may have been hollowed by fire, a method often employed by 

 savages in canoe making. The workmanship is crude, some parts of the shell being 

 much thicker than other parts, and the canoe possesses none of the graceful lines so fre- 

 quently associated with the handicraft of Indians. Other white-pine canoes made by 

 New York Indians are in existence, but they do not date beyond the period of edged tools. 



