EUEOPEAN TIMBER 
37 
Planks are pieces of various lengths and thicknesses, 
11 inches wide and over, and 12 ft. and upwards in 
length. 
Boards or flooring are pieces 1 inch thick and under. 
Although these names, deals, planks, and battens, are still 
used, they have not the same significance as when Baltic 
timber was confined to the sizes 7, 9, and 11 inches, 
and a reference to Appendix, p. 330, will show the almost 
unlimited variety of scantlings from which the timber 
buyer can now make his selection in this wood. 
Great quantities of spruce, especially from the smaller- 
sized trees, are manufactured into pulp for paper. 
Fir is a name indiscriminately applied to the pines, 
spruces, and firs ; they come from the same districts in the 
Baltic. The Northern and Scotch pine are often called 
fir ; the timber is used for the same purposes and the 
quality is similar to spruce, from which it is not easily 
distinguishable, except by the absence of resin ducts. 
Silver Fir (Ahies pectinata), imported as " Swiss pine," is 
employed chiefly for the sounding boards of pianos and the 
bellies of violins. The colour is a pinkish white, light, soft, 
porous, silky in texture, elastic, easily worked, but not 
durable if exposed to wet and dry ; it is sometimes used as 
piles on the Continent, and is fairly satisfactory for pro- 
tecting river banks from scour ; it is one of the most 
sonorous of woods. It is also much used for toy-making, 
carving, and for packing cases, is largely imported from 
the Tyrol, and is used in its native district for fencing, 
]internal work, general carpentry, pulp, and charcoal. The 
-well-known Strasburg turpentine is obtained from this tree. 
Larch (Larix Europea), Fig. 8, a tree which attains a 
height of 60 to 100 ft., grows rapidly, and is useful from an 
