46 HOUGH'S* AMERICAN WOODS. 



is of a rich reddish-brown color with nearly white sap wood. Specific 

 Gravity, 0.3796; Percentage of Ash, 0. IT; Relative Approximate 

 fuel Value, 0.3790; Coefficient of Elasticity, 103372; Modulus of 

 Rupture, 749; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 450; Resistance 

 to Indentation, 70; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 23.66. 



USES. A valuable wood for interior finishing, for doors, window- 

 sashes, etc., for fences and general construction purposes; but the 

 chief use to which it is applied is the manufacture of shingles, for 

 which its wonderful durability gives it special value. 



NOTE. While in the State of Washington in December, 1899, I 

 was told that there were at that time one hundred and fifty-eight 

 shingle mills in that state in operation making shingles of this wood 

 and turning out thousands of car-loads annually. 



It is not entirely the standing timber which is being used in this 

 industry, but largely the trunks of the fallen monarchs which may 

 have lain many decades on the ground, indeed, some so long that large 

 forest trees have grown above them. 



I photographed one of these prostrate trunks on top of which a 

 hemlock tree (Tsuga heretophylla) was growing with trunk 2ft. in 

 diameter and its great roots extended down on both sides of the cedar 

 log. Then to determine the age of the hemlock, which had recently 

 died as the result of forest fires, we cut into it and counted its annual 

 rings. We found one hundred and thirty. No knowing how long 

 the cedar may have lain there before the hemlock seed fell upon it 

 and commenced germination. In all probability the cedar must have 

 fallen about one hundred and fifty years ago and yet its trunk is in such 

 sound condition that most of it has recently been made into shingles. 



GENUS PINUS^ TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves evergreen, needle-shaped, from slender buds, in clusters of 2-5 together, 

 each cluster invested at its base with a sheath of thin, membranous scales. Flowers 

 appearing in spring, monoecious. Sterile flowers in catkins, clustered at the base 

 of the shoots of the season; stamens numerous with very short filaments and a 

 scale-like connective; anther cells. 2, opening lengthwise; pollen grains triple. 

 Fertile flowers in conical or cylindrical spikes cones consisting of imbricated, 

 carpellary scales, each in the axil of a persistent bract and bearing at its base 

 within a pair of inverted ovules. Fruit maturing in the autumn of the second 

 year, a cone formed of the imbricated carpellary scales, which are woody, often 

 thickened or awned at the apex, persistent, when ripe dry and spreading each to 

 liberate two nut-like and usually winged seeds; cotyledons 3-12, linear. 



(Pinus is a Latin word from Celtic pin or pen, a crag.) 



