50 USES OF COMMERCIAL, WOODS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



WATER PIPES. 



White pine was formerly made into mains and pipes for municipal 

 waterworks, and some use of it for that purpose still continues. It 

 was also employed in New England and New York mills for conduct- 

 ing water from ponds to forebays and wheels. The millwright 

 constructed conduits of staves joined and banded, and forming a con- 

 tinuous piece without coupling called broken- joint construction. 

 Mains of that kind were seldom of great length, ranging from a few 

 feet to or 100. 



The mains and pipes for town and city water supply were of a 

 different kind. They were not of staves, forming a cylindrical trunk 

 or conduit, but of logs with a hole bored lengthwise and fastened end 

 to end with water-tight couplings. It is uncertain when pipes of 

 that kind first came into use in the northeastern part of the United 

 States. A few were employed at an early day, and they were doing 

 service in many towns a century or more ago. Other woods were 

 given a place, but in most instances where early records mention the 

 kind of wood, it was white pine within the range of that tree, and 

 occasionally outside of its immediate range. At Wilmington, Del., 

 when 300 feet of pine pipe was taken up it was sound, though it 

 had been in the ground at least 70 years, and no one knew how much 

 longer. Pipes of the same kind were laid in the Jamaica Pond 

 Waterworks, Boston, very early probably about 1800 and in 1895 

 sections were removed in good condition, though they had been out 

 of use many years. Pipe laid early in the century in New York and 

 Philadelphia was undecayed after long periods of service. 



When wooden pipes are kept full of water, under considerable pres- 

 sure, the water fills the pores of the wood and prevents decay. To 

 that fact is due the long service given by pipes made of woods which, 

 in ordinary damp situations, decay in a short time. The pipes re- 

 moved from the Jamaica Pond Waterworks were hardened on the 

 outside and, when cut, the wood was fresh and bright. 



About 1860 an improved method of making wooden pipe was intro- 

 duced, and the product was called the " Wyckoff pipe," named from 

 the inventor, A. Wyckoff, of Elmira,, N. Y. Instead of boring the in- 

 terior of a log as the ordinary auger does it, a machine was designed 

 to take out a core. From this core a smaller was taken, and from 

 that a still smaller, until a log was made into several pipes, ranging 

 downward in size. The largest had an inside diameter of 17 inches 

 and the smallest 2 inches. The waste was comparatively small. In 

 1905 there were 1,500 miles of such pipe in the United States, serving 

 in municipal waterworks, manufacturing plants, and for other pur- 

 poses. Michigan had more than any other State. The pipe is manu- 

 factured from a number of woods, but more white pine seems to have 



