108 



INDUSTJMAL USES OF WOOD. 



(a) Thus, timber in the round is the part of a stem which has 

 been merely barked, and may be used directly as piles, masts 

 and spars, wheel-hubs, scaflblding-poles, pillars, anvil-stocks, 

 telegraph-posts, hop-poles, or, when bored, for M-ater-pipes. 



(b) Balks are used as beams in the construction of houses, 

 bridges or ships, being logs roughly squared cither with the axe 

 or saw. If not quite square, they are termed waney (tig. 24, 



Fig. 



<>, 1>, (], '■) ■'^, i, '>!, ^Oi wanes being the natural surface of the 

 timber, and panes the flat, hewn or sawn surfaces from which 

 side-pieces have been removed. 



In the case of waney balks, for which rarely more than two- 

 thirds of the trunk are utilized, the waste is about 12 to 15 per 

 cent, of the whole, while, when the timber is square, the loss is 

 about 27 per cent. 



Boles about GO feet long and of about HI inches mid-diameter, 

 corresponding to 12 inches diameter chest-high (4i feet from 

 the ground), are commonly used for balks. 



(c) Round oakwood is sometimes split through the centre into 

 half-balks, with a section as shown in tig. 25. 



These half-balks are met with in the Baltic oak-trade and in 

 the case of oak from the Spessart, and are used in cabinet- 

 making and joiners' work. 



Quarter -balks {hois dc qiiarticr), are commonly produced in 

 France by sawing two cuts at right angles to one another 

 through the heart of a tree. 



