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The World's Commercial Products 



The wood is light,- soft, of fine, even grain, and white or light brown in colour. It is not 

 very strong, and although fine grained, is very open, requiring considerable " filling " in 

 polishing. Easily worked and lasting well, it has many uses for interior work, such as for furni- 

 ture, turning, carving, toys, -panelling in carriages, etc. Bass wood is well appreciated in this 

 country, where, however, it is often confased with American white wood. It is imported in 

 prepared boards of various thicknesses and widths. 



White bass wood is obtained from another lime {Tilia heterophylla), a smaller tree than 

 the preceding, and found on the Alleghanies. 



Oak. There are a very large number of kinds of oak in commerce, but the true European 

 oak is obtained from varieties of Quercus Robur, the ordinary oak tree of this country, and 



found generally over Europe • and 

 part of Asia. Several other species 

 of Quercus yield oak in Europe and 

 also in North America. The gene- 

 ral character and uses of oak are 

 very well known. For strength 

 and durability it is most valuable. 

 Oak suffers from one drawback : it 

 rusts when in contact with iron 

 (compare teak). 



Many other timbers have also 

 been termed "oaks." For instance, 

 African oak (Oldfieldia africana), a 

 useful hard wood obtained from 

 tropical Africa ; Indian oak, an- 

 other name for teak ; She oak, 

 applied to ;the woods of some of 

 the Australian Casuarina trees, and 

 so on. 



Chestnut Wood is that of the 

 Spanish or Sweet Chestnut (Cas- 

 tanea vulgaris), commonly grown 

 in Great Britain as an ornamental 

 tree or in coppices for the sake of 

 the poles it yields. It should be 

 distinguished from the Horse Chest- 

 nut, its fruit being the edible 

 chestnut. The wood is fairly hard, 

 of various shades of brown. Speaking generally, chestnut can be put to many of the same 

 uses as oak, which- it strikingly resembles in colour. The roof of Westminster Hall is said to 

 be made of chestnut. The old wood is rather brittle, and where strength is essential, timber 

 from very old trees should be avoided. In the South of England coppiced chestnut is grown 

 for the sake of its young stems, which are used as hop poles, etc. 



Elm. The elms occur throughout the north temperate zone, and two are abundant in 

 Great Britain, the Common Elm (Ulmus campestris) and the Wych Elm (Ulmus montana). 

 Elm wood is of moderate hardness, coarse grained, very strong and tough. It is usually cross 

 grained, and so is very difneult to split. Water has very little effect on it, and elm is largely 

 used for the keels and other submerged parts of ships, for piles, pumps, sluicing work, etc., 

 and for coffins. The early water conduits were made of hollowed-out elm trunks, and some 

 were in use in London until comparatively recently. Although so durable under water, it 

 readily decays in situations where it is alternately wet and dry, and is thus of but little value 



From Stereograph Copyright, Underwood- & Underwood, I^ondon and New York 

 A SAW MILL IN THE BIG TREE DISTRICT, CALIFORNIA 



