406 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[December 



no tendency to warp, and preserves the form that the workman gives 

 it. Yellow pine timber ought not to be used for rafters, joists, gird- 

 ers, or plates, in any building; for no purpose, in short, and in no si- 

 tuation, where strength and stiffness are required, and where the ends 

 or any part of the, timber come in contact with brick-work or masonry, 

 or are liable or subjected to damp. Yellow pine timber is not rigid ; 

 it is deficient in strength; will break with a less weight than almost any 

 other kind of timber; and, except in perfectly dry situations, or 

 where it is thoroughly well ventilated, is extremely liable to take the 

 dry rot. 



Deals, Planks, and Battens. 

 The first thing to be considered, as regards deals, is the quality of 

 the wood. Many deals are of durable quality, and fit, on that account, 

 for rough out-of-door purposes, and coarse floors or carpentry, but 

 they are wholly inapplicable for fine joiner's work ; for when the saw 

 has passed through and reduced them to small dimensions, they warp 

 and twist like a piece of whalebone. Deals of this character are termed 

 by carpenters "strong." Such deals have likewise the bad property 

 in general, of rending themselves to pieces as they dry, and become 

 shaky. Deals that, when acted upon by the saw, do not furm saw- 

 dust, but are torn into long strings or fibres, and, on that account, 

 termed "stringy" are in general of this strong nature. Such deals 

 are likewise less uniform in their texture, and vary more in the 

 alternate fibres and cellular parts than the deals which are. lit for the 

 joiner. The deal to be good should have a certain degree of softness, 

 easily yeilding to the knife or chisel. Such deals are to be distin- 

 guished by their light weight, in comparison with the strong fibrous 

 deals, and when planed, they exhibit a silky texture. Some deals, 

 and particularly the stringy deals, are very hygrometric, and never lose 

 the property (however long they have been seasoned), of expanding 

 and contracting with change of weather. White Petersburg!! deals are 

 said to have that property. The deal to be good should be straight in 

 the grain; if cross grained, it generally becomes shaky diagonally upon 

 drying, and falls to pieces under the saw; or, if cross-grained in a 

 lesser degree, it does not yield a smooth surface to to the plane, but 

 remains rough and fuzzy. The deal should, of course, be without coarse 

 knots, and the more nearly it is perfectly clean the better. As to the 

 manufacture of the deal ; it should be square-cut; above all things, it 

 ought not to have the centre or pitch of the tree left within it, since, 

 where that is the case, the deal rends on drying. In yellow deals the 

 sap, or albuinem of the tree, ought to show itself only at the very 

 edge of that part of the deal which was furthest from the centre 

 of the tree. Deals are usually cut of three different widths, each 

 of which has its appropriate name: — those from 11 or 12 inches 

 wide are called planks, — those from Si to 10 inches are called 

 deals, — and those from (U to 7 inches are called battens. 



Yellow Deals. 



Norway Deals. — The yellow deals of Christiania, in Norway, have 

 always been considered to be of the very best description ; — they are 

 so in two senses — they are both durable and mellow; mellow meaning, 

 soft, light, and fit for the joiner. Though soft, they are not wanting 

 in a proper degree of stiffness. When properly seasoned, previously 

 to being used, they remain (however minutely divided) precisely of the 

 form that the joiner gives. This quality applies to the white, as well 

 as to the yellow deals of Christiania — and to those above the deals of 

 any other part of the world — and, therefore, the deals of Christiania 

 will always be the material that the consumer will endeavour to ob- 

 tain, if the price will allow him to do so. 



Of late years the mode of taking the duty caused the deals to be 

 cut in longer lengths than the timber would afford, so that inferior 

 wood has been brought into the London market, and the high estima- 

 tion and price diminished to a certain extent; it is said, however, that 

 they are now rapidly regaining their former character. 



The Yellow deals from Frederickstadt, in Norway, are very nearly 

 the same in quality with those of Christiania, and generally obtain 

 nearly the same price in the market. The white deals would be as 

 good as those of Christiania, but for one defect, which is that the bark 



of the tree adheres to the knots, which, therefore, have a black ring 

 round them ; when the deal comes to be cut into board, a knot of this 

 kind is ap* to fall out. It may be observed that neither the deals of 

 Christiania nor Frederickstadt are of as good qualitv as they used to 

 be, particularly as respects the yellow deals. 



There are several kinds of yellow deals not quite so good as 

 those of Christiania in the quality of the wood, and yet coming near to 

 them, which formerly used to be imported from Norway in very large 

 quantities, and still are imported from some of the places of ship- 

 ment referred to, but to a moderate extent only. The principal of 

 these ports are Longsound, Porsground, L.irwig, Krageroe and Dram. 

 The cloister deals from Longsound 2 inches thick, and the broad and 

 clean deals from Krageroe 14 inch thick and 14 feet long, were 

 noted for their excellence. From Dram, an immense quantity, both 

 wdiite and yellow, were imported, usually 10 feet long and 2 inches 

 thick. The "lowland" deals from this port are of inferior quality, 

 but the " upland" of superior quality. 



Of the deals of most of the above-mentioned ports it may be said 

 that they are good as regards the texture of the wood, but small in 

 size, as they are seldom more than from Si to 8? inches wide. Some 

 few deals (principally white deals) used to come from Tonsberg, oc- 

 casionally there was a considerable supply from Frederickstadt and 

 Moss; the yellow deals of those ports are of bad quality, and the 

 white deals not much better. Of the white lowland deals of Norway, 

 in general it may be said that they resemble in quality the white 

 spruce deals of America; they have the same tendency to warp and 

 to rend on drying. 



Deals of Sweden. — The yellow deals of Sweden nearest in quality 

 to the best yellow deals of Norway, as regards their being at the 

 same time durable and mellow, are those which come from Stock- 

 holm and from Geffle in the gulf of Bothnia. If Stockholm or Geffle 

 deals were quite as mellow as Christiania deals, they would be pre- 

 ferred to those of Christiania, on account of their full size and free- 

 dom from sap, but they are somewhat more disposed to warp, and 

 with regard to Gelfle deals to have coarse knots. There are some 

 other ports in the gulph of Bothnia, viz., Ilernosand and Sundswall, 

 from which cargoes of yellow deals are shipped, occasionally little 

 inferior in quality to those from Stockholm and Geffle. But it may be 

 said of most of the deals from those ports, that in them there is in 

 general an exaggeration of the faults perceptible in the deals of 

 Stockholm and Geffle. A large portion of the deals from Ilernosand 

 and Sundswall are from IS to 21 feet long and 10 inches wide. The 

 deals of Soderham and Schonwick are of a still harder and coarser 

 nature than those last described. The yellow deals of Gottenberg 

 although very free from sap, and durable, yet have the fault of being 

 rigid and unfit for the joiner; they are, however, well adapted for 

 rough purposes, both in and out of doors, on account of their dura- 

 bility. 



Deals of Northern Russia. — The yellow deals of Archangel and 

 Onega are very similar to each other in quality, and of all deals, they 

 approach in one respect the nearest to the yellow deals of Christiania; 

 they are exceedingly mellow, and fit for the joiner — on the other hand 

 they are not very durable or capable of resisting damp, for which 

 reason they ought not to be used in the ground-floor of a house ; the 

 knots are apt to be surrounded by dead bark : they are imported of 

 the average length of 20 feet. Archangel deals formerly were im- 

 ported only of the width of 11 inches, or 7 inches, that is, in the 

 state of plank or of batten, but more recently they have been im- 

 ported of the width of '.I inches, and from the certainty of obtaining 

 entire cargoes of the very first quality, without any admixture of in- 

 ferior goods, (an object which could seldom be accomplished with 

 regard either to Norwegian or Swedish deals,) these Archangel deals 

 were made to supersede the use of almost every other superior de- 

 scription of European yellow deals. St. Petersburg and Narva yellow 

 deals come of the breadth of 11, 0, and 7 inches: in quality the wood 

 is inferior to that of Onega or of Archangel : Petersburg deal is less 

 durable and not nearly so mellow as either the Archangel or Onega 

 deal ; it is said to be nearly as liable to take the dry rot in a damp 



