590 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



by fungi, or to some chemical change in the sap. It is not believed that 

 the change in color weakens the wood, at least it does not appear to do 

 so immediately. The heart is reddish, and when dressed and polished, 

 it presents a fine appearance. 



Red alder when thoroughly air dry weighs about thirty pounds per 

 cubic foot, which is slightly above the weight of basswood. It is strong 

 for its weight, rating only eight per cent below white oak, while in 

 stiffness or elasticity it is about twelve per cent above white oak. It is 

 not difficult to season, is soft, stands weH when made up, and is one of the 

 most important hardwoods of the northwest Pacific coast. More than 

 2,000,000 feet a year go to wood-using factories in Washington and 

 Oregon. 



The Indians of the Northwest, when they had only stone hatchets 

 or the crudest kinds of metal tools, found red alder a wood which worked 

 so easily that they specialized with it. They made canoes of the largest 

 trunks, and all manner of troughs, trays, trenches, platters, and dugouts, 

 some of no more than a pint in capacity, others holding three or four 

 bushels. The Field Museum in Chicago has a collection of these Indian 

 utensils made of alder. The workmanship shows considerable skill 

 mixed with barbaric art. There are carvings of eagles and bears which 

 are not entirely grotesque. The utensils were designed primarily to 

 contain food at ceremonial feasts, or it was stored for times of scarcity. 

 Among them are cooking vessels of alder in which meat was boiled by 

 filling the troughs with water and dropping in hot stones. 



Furniture manufacturers are the largest users of red alder. Care- 

 fully selected heartwood, finished in the proper color, looks much like 

 cherry, though it lacks something of the characteristic cherry luster. 

 The sapwood in its natural color resembles the sapwood of yellow birch. 

 The annual rings are defined by narrow bands of dense summerwood. 

 The pores are small and diffused through the entire ring, as with birch. 

 Medullary rays are very thin and do not show much figure ; neither do 

 the rings of growth, in tangential sawing, display much contrast. It is, 

 therefore, a figureless wood, entering into practically all grades of 

 furniture, in the region where alder is plentiful, but it shows to particu- 

 larly good advantage in panels. 



Reports on wood-utilization on the Pacific coast list this wood 

 for archery bows but particulars as to amount used, and why it is used at 

 all, are not given. The physical properties of the wood do not seem to 

 fit it for that use. It is wanting in both strength and elasticity which 

 are the prime, almost the only, factors considered in selecting bow wood. 

 No account has been found of any employment of alder for bows by 

 Indians of the region where it grows. 



