44 THE PKINCIPAL OSBB OF WOOD. 



CHAPTER II.— THE PRINCIPAL USES OF WOOD. 



With the exception of iron, there is scarcely any raw product 

 that serves so many purposes, some of them the most common 

 ones of daily life, as wood. All these various purposes may, how- 

 ever, be grouped together into only two comprehensive categories 

 according as the wood is required for its own sake or only for 

 certain products obtained from its decomposition. We have thus 

 the two great classes of (1) timber and (2) fieewood. 



Section I. — Timbek. 



Since, by the preceding definition, timber includes every piece 

 of wood that is manufactured into some article or other without 

 its specific nature being changed, timber may be of any size, and 

 the popular notion that the idea of timber necessarily implies 

 certain considerable dimensions is therefore wrong. 



The timber obtained directly from the tree by merely topping 

 it and lopping off the branches is termed round timber, or is said 

 to be in the round or in the log. If the trunk is roughly squared, 

 either with the axe (the most frequent) or with the saw, it is called 

 halk or square timber or simply a balk. A balk that is not quite 

 square is said to be waney, the wanes being the natural round sur- 

 faces of the original trunk, and the panes the flat hewn or sawn 

 surfaces. Rough timber consists of the trunk or main branches 

 hewn to octagonal section. Sided timber is the trunk split down 

 and roughly formed to a polygonal section. In India, where 

 round posts consisting entirely of heartwood is so often used 

 (e.g., sal tors), logs of small girth are dressed round. Compass 

 TIMBER is squared timber that is curved in one plane. 



For such a country as India, with its diverse climates, species, 

 peoples, and modes of life, it is impossible to devise as yet, in 

 English, a classification of the market forms of timber that can 

 be universally adopted. The following is, however, given to show 

 on what lines such a classification ought to be based, and to make 

 ideas more precise in the mind of the student, : — 



Round Timber. 



Loas, pieces at least 6 feet long and having a minimum girth 

 ot '6 feet at butt. 



