2 
TIMBEE 
the case of electric lighting, which it was prophesied would 
run gas lighting out of the market, the use of the latter 
increases yearly, so in the case of timber, greatly increased 
quantities are imported into Great Britain every year, the 
increase for 1907 over that for 1906 being about 4 per 
cent., although the year just closed has been one of the 
worst known in the building trade. 
Although timber has to a certain extent been superseded 
by other material for building and shipbuilding work, yet 
it is now used for many purposes for which it was not used 
in the past. To mention only a few, it is within quite 
recent years that timber has been adopted for street 
paving, and now in Great Britain this class of paving can 
be reckoned by square miles. The same applies to nearly 
all the countries of the world, and its use in this form is 
continually increasing. Immense quantities of the smaller 
softwood trees, spruce and others, are converted into pulp 
for the manufacture of paper ; this too is quite a recent 
business, yet in 1906 nearly 9,000,000 tons were used 
for pulp in the United States alone. The immense con- 
sumption of wood for this purpose is brought vividly before 
us when we are told that the average circulation of a 
popular daily halfpenny paper requires 200 trees for pulp. 
Millions of acres of forest are converted into railway 
sleepers every year, whilst telegraph and telephone poles 
are erected by millions, and for the casing of electric wires 
in dwelling-houses many miles of small scantling white 
wood are employed ; even in ferro-concrete a large quantity 
of timber is used for temporary purposes. 
Timber was probably one of the earliest, if not the 
earliest, materials used by man for constructional purposes. 
With it he built himself a shelter from the elements, it 
provided him with fuel and ofttimes food, and the tree cut 
down and let fall across a stream formed the first bridge ; 
