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

THE TIMBER AND PREPARATION OF
TELEGRAPH POLES.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
The Size, Preparation, and Durability of Telegraph Poles, including the Red
Cedar, White-Cedar, Walnut, Poplar, Pine, White-Oak, Black-Oak, PostOak, Chestnut, Honey Locust, Cotton Wood, Sycamore, and other Timbers.
POLES ON THE AMERICAN TELEGRAPH LINES.
I PROPOSE now to discuss the materials used for telegraph
poles, and the different modes of their preparation for that service. All countries do not employ the same timbers and modes
of arrangement, but this state of facts is not a matter of choice;
it is owing to the existence or non-existence of the different
kinds of wood in the respective countries. In America there
is a much greater variety of wood, than is to be found on the
continent of Europe. In the Northern States of America, there
is not that variety that there is to be found in the Southwestern. In the former, telegraph poles are mostly of the white-oak,
and the chestnut; and in the latter, they are of the white-oak,
post-oak, red-cedar, black-walnut, honey-locust, ash, sassafrias,
and elm. In England, the larch is the most common. In
Russia, the pine; in France, the pine, the alder, poplar, and
other white woods; in Germany, the spruce and pine, and in
India, the bamboo.
These timbers differ as to duration, when placed in the
earth. The pine of Europe, however, does not decay as rapidly
as the pine of America, and, therefore, the rejection of that
wood in America, from service, in the construction of telegraph
lines, must not arbitrarily cause a depreciation of the European pine, in the mind of the reader. The alder of France is
not the same as the common alder of America-in the former
(ountry it is a tree, but in the latter it is a bush, seldom more
than two to three inches in diameter, at its base.
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