XXXIV. ] VELLOW PINE. 277 
rally proved equal to the strains brought to bear upon 
it; the stays, shrouds, and other rigging being quite 
sufficient to hold it against any ordinary amount of 
pressure.* 
After the spars have been withdrawn from each 
season’s fall of trees, the remainder are hewn into a 
square form, producing logs varying from 14 to 26 inches 
square, and from 18 to 40 feet in length (Fig. 29). These 
pass through a sorting for quality, to suit the market, but 
there are no official brands by which the surveyor could 
at once identify them. Good, sound, practical judgment 
is therefore most essential for making a selection of this 
wood, 
Occasionally we see quoted some “ waney” timber 
for board purposes, or “waney board timber.” These 
logs are not so perfectly hewn or squared as the ordinary 
timber, and are usually short butts of trees, which are 
very clean in the grain, free from knots, and solid at the 
centre. These are probably procured from fine trees that 
* Masts made of Yellow Pine can seldom be relied upon after eight or 
ten years’ work, especially if they have been used in the tropics, where the 
intense heat and rains deteriorate them very rapidly. Every care should 
therefore be taken to preserve them, first by painting them only after thorough 
seasoning, and then at intervals of a year or so. The covers at the wedging 
decks should also be carefully looked to, and kept in good condition, to 
prevent damp from affecting the mast at that part. The introduction of 
iron for the lower masts of ships is now fast superseding the use of wood, 
both in the royal and the mercantile navy. 
