THE USES OF WOOD 



421 



that are excellent. It is strong, stiff and elastic, and in 

 comparison with stone and brick, it is light. It is nearly 

 impervious to water, and wooden houses are dry while 

 those of brick and stone may absorb and transmit 

 dampness. Wood is a nonconductor of heat, conse- 

 quently houses of this material are warmer in winter 

 and cooler in summer than are those of other common 



A LOG HOUSE OF THE BETTER CLASS 



This house, overlooking the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, is about 

 as good an example of a log dwelling as is to be found. The logs are 

 hewed, the chimney is of cut stone, but the sheet iron roof betrays present 

 day repairs. The building suggests a respectable old homestead. 



building materials. It is a sound-absorber to a con- 

 siderable extent, and in respect to quietness, wooden 

 buildings compare favorably with others. 



The color of wood is never offensive to refined tastes, 

 nor is it trying on the eyes. That holds true whether 

 it is the wood forming an old wall of logs, weathered by 

 years of sun and storm, or whether it is the dressed 

 and finished panels composing wainscoting, ceilings, or 

 doors. The color rests the eyes and pleases the sense of 

 beauty. 



Wood is hard enough to resist satisfactorily the wear 

 which the various parts of a building receive ; yet it is 

 sufficiently soft to be readily cut and shaped with tools, 

 and it is in that respect ideal for building purposes. The 

 axman quickly severs or hews a log; the sawyer rips 

 or crosscuts to make every piece fit ; the carpenter with 

 hammer and nails fastens parts together with ease and 

 rapidity ; the carver finds wood easy to work into artis- 

 tic designs. Thus every workman who puts tools to 

 wood, from the crudest laborer to the trained artist, 

 finds in it a material satisfactory in nearly every respect. 



These qualities have had much to do with the popu- 

 larity of wood with builders in all ages. The hut of 

 bark, poles, or puncheons, if well roofed and with chinks 

 closed, kept the dwellers as warm and dry as are the 

 occupants of the finest residences of the present time. If 

 those who lived in log houses were not always dry and 

 warm (and they were not always so), it was because they 

 neglected the roofs or permitted too many openings in 

 the walls to remain unchinked and undaubed. The dis- 

 comforts, if there were any, were not due to the qualities 

 of the wood forming the house, but to the faults of the 

 builder or occupants. 



The two qualities most frequently objected to in wood 



are its combustibility and its susceptibility to decay. 

 Wood will burn and it will decay; but woden houses 

 have stood hundreds of years, thus furnishing proof that 

 buildings need not burn, and that decay may be 

 prevented. Buildings of any material must be cared for 

 if they are to give long service, and those of wood need 

 little more, if any more, care than those of other mater- 

 ials. Wood set in place by the lake dwellers of Switzer- 

 land, and by the cliff dwellers of Arizona, and by the 

 unknown builders of some of the buried cities of Cen- 

 tral America, is still in place. That is as much as can be 

 said of stone, mortar, metals, shells, bones, and other 

 building materials associated with the wood by the for- 

 gotten peoples. Some of the teak and yew door posts 

 excavated from buried palaces of Mesopotamia are in 

 a better state of preservation than is the brickwork that 

 formed the bulk of the buildings. The black walnut 

 and mesquite lintels were found to be the, least weather- 

 worn materials in the old Alamo at San Antonio, Texas, 

 when it was restored a few years ago. From the stand- 

 point of durability, no one should ever feel called upon 

 to apologize for wood. 



The builders of log cabins seldom knew or cared much 

 about the principles of architecture, but they were re- 

 sourceful. They were able to build log houses without 



THE "OLD JACKSON" MILL 



It was built of yellow poplar a hundred years ago; photograph in 1916. 

 The Confederate general, Stonewall Jackson, worked in this mill when 

 a boy and in front of it he mounted his horse to go to West Point to 

 begin his military career. The mill is 150 miles south of Pittsburgh, and 

 it still grinds grain for the farmers. 



the employment of a nail or other scrap of metal, except 

 the crude tools with which they worked. The roofs 

 were held on by heavy poles placed with such skill that 

 no wind ever unroofed such a cabin, no snow ever pushed 

 the poles off. The door hinges and locks or latches were 

 of wood ; wooden pegs were employed in making doors, 

 and were the forerunners of the dowels used by door 

 factories today. The wooden peg was an important 



