EUEOPEAN TIMBER 
45 
Hornbeam {Carpinus betulus) is a British tree which grows 
to a height of 30 to 60 ft. and produces a hard, tough, 
strong, white coloured, close cross-grained, inelastic, heavy 
wood, containing little or no sap ; it stands exposure- well 
unless cut from old trees. Under vertical pressure the 
fibres often double up instead of snapping. Makes good 
mallets and lasts, and is also used for agricultural imple- 
ments and turning; takes a fine polish, tools employed upon 
it soon lose their edge ; is difficult to split and make smooth 
under the plane ; it also shrinks a good deal. In Gerald's 
" Herball," 1633, he says that this wood " waxeth so hard 
that the toughness and hardness of it may be rather com- 
pared to horn than unto wood and therefore it is called 
hornbeam or hardbeam." It was formerly in Britain and 
is still in some parts of Europe preferred for making yokes 
for cattle ; hence, according to some authorities, the name. 
A considerable quantity of the hornbeam used in Britain is 
imported from France in planks 6 to 19 ft. long, 6 to 12 
inches wide, and 3 to 6 inches thick. It grows fairly 
plentifully in America, but the wood is not exported. The 
amount of water absorbed into cubes of hornbeam, which 
attained its maximum at end of the sixth day, ranged from 45 
to 79 per cent, of its dry weight, and the weight needed to 
crush 2-inch cubes of dry wood was from 19,621 to 25,794 lbs. 
Annual rings fairly close, medullary rays distinct and 
numerous. 
Weight about 47 lbs. per cubic foot. 
Sycamore or Great Maple (Acei' pseudo-platajuis), often 
called the plane tree in Scotland, is neither a plane nor a 
true sycamore; it is common in Britain and Germany, 
although practically the whole of the sycamore of commerce 
comes from America. The tree attains a height of 60 ft., 
and produces an almost white wood, slightly yellow in older 
