The telegraph manual: a complete history and description of the semaphoric, electric and magnetic telegraphs of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, ancient and modern.

684 TELEGRAPH POLES ON AMERICAN LINES.
I have frequently found the hickory wood petrified, making excellent razor hones, one of which I have had in service for
twenty-five years. I have already stated that it was important to strip the pole of its bark, because if it is not taken off,
worms shelter under the bark, and make rapid work eating
away the wood, to reach the solubles buried in its recesses.
They penetrate through the fibre in every direction, until the
nourishment is exhausted, when the worm dies from starvation. The thousands of holes made by the worms aid to diffuse throughout the wood the moisture of the seasons, and in
this way, in a few months, the pole decays, and yields to an
ordinary strain of the wire, or to the force of the wind.
The white-cedar has been used in some sections of the
United States, but it gives but little service. It is composed
mostly of the sappy or white wood, differing from the red-cedar,
which has not more white wood than the thickness of a knifeblade.
Some companies have had poles sawed from the large whiteoak of the forest-large at one end, and tapering to the, other.
The poles were sawed square, and they gave promise of being
very serviceable. Their cost was about five dollars each,
which was at once a bar to their general use. Their durability
has not been equal to the round sapling of the same locality,
and of the same wood.
In 1848, the Magnetic Company constructed a new line of
poles from Washington to Baltimore, in replacement of the
poles erected as an experimental line in 1844. These new
poles were of chestnut, stripped of their bark, and well charred
at the earth end. The soil on this line is sandy, or gravel intermixed with clay. Many of these poles remain to the present
time. Their diameter at the base is about eight inches.
As I have stated herein before, the telegraph lines in America have been constructed with such rapidity, that it was impossible to procure poles properly prepared, for permanency. I
have known lines erected at an ordinary rate of one hundred
miles per month, by one corps of workmen. While one set
of workmen were digging the holes, another was cutting and
hauling the poles, another was fitting the insulators, another
would raise the poles, and the last would stretch the wire on
them. In this way I have superintended the construction of
ten miles in a day. This rapidity was occasioned by rivalry.
The main object of the rival companies was to reach certain
cities first, regardless of every consequence.
The House telegraph lines are more modern, and are better
built. All the poles were selected with much care, of good