280 DEPARTMENTAL REPOETS. 



COOPERATIVE TELEPHONE POLE WORK. 



During the past year the American Telephone and Telegraph Com- 

 pany and the Postal Telegraph Cable Company have assisted in work 

 having for its object the determination of the best methods of hand- 

 ling and treating telephone and telegraph poles. Several hundred 

 poles of chestnut and juniper were cut and carried through a full 

 year of seasoning at Dover, N. J., Thorndale and Paoli, Pa., and Pis- 

 gah and Wilmington, N. C. Separate lots of these poles were then 

 treated with several different preservatives. The treated poles, care- 

 fully numbered and labeled, have now been set in an experimental 

 section of the line of the American Telephone and Telegraph Com- 

 pany between Savannah and Meldrim, Ga. Each treated pole is set 

 between a green and a seasoned untreated pole for comparison. 



Special open treating tanks were designed by the Service to permit 

 of the treatment with creosote of 30-foot poles. So far as is known, 

 this is the first apparatus constructed in the United States for im- 

 pregnating the butts of telephone and telegraph poles. It was used 

 with entire success. 



A report on the seasoning and treating of telephone poles is now 

 under way. 



EXPERIMENTAL TREATING PLANT AT ST. LOUIS. 



A special appropriation of $10,000 made it possible to carry on at 

 the Louisiana Purchase Exposition experiments in the use of creosote 

 as a preservative. Experiments were made to determine whether 

 cheap and quickly grown timbers like cottonwood, willow, elm, and 

 maple could be made durable enough for fence posts by creosoting. 

 The treatments were made in an upright tank with heat applied di- 

 rect. The work was too brief to be conclusive, but gave the best 

 indications of success. 



A second series of experiments was on loblolly pine and red oak 

 cross-ties, to determine how these important and abundant timbers 

 can be most economically treated. Both were found readily capable 

 of treatment, and both, when treated, are fully satisfactory for ties. 

 In connection with these treatments a series of tests on loblolly pine, 

 to determine the effect on the strength of wood both of the prelim- 

 inary steaming process and of the preservatives (zinc chloride and 

 creosote) themselves, gave definite results. A complete report is to 

 be submitted. 



DENDEO-CHEMISTRY. 



A large part of the work was the determination of the amount of 

 zinc in timbers treated by the zinc chloride process. Analj'ses in the 

 St. Louis laboratory of borings or sections of treated ties from all 

 points in the field where treatments have been carried on gave most 

 valuable results. A method of analysis was worked out which is 

 recommended for general adoption, and a report setting forth this 

 method was prepared. 



Much attention was given during the year both to the examination 

 of various coal-tar creosotes and to the methods of analysis for such 

 creosotes. With the increasing use of coal-tar creosote for preserving 

 ;timbers, the necessity for some standard method of determining its 



