FOOTNOTE
[41] "American Woods," Part 6, p. 36.
BIRCH. (Betula.)
The birches grow in Europe, Asia, and North America, their ranges on the latter continent extending far into the north.[42] Their history is remote and probably began with attention to the bark rather than to the wood.
Birch-bark is smooth, pliable, water-tight, and by reason of its resinous oils so durable that it often remains intact long after the wood inside of fallen trees has disappeared. It is separable into thin layers and was early employed as a writing material.[43] Houses have been covered by it and it has been used for cordage, utensils, "damp courses," and even rude clothing. The American Indians employed it for canoes, tents, troughs, and buckets. The wood is hard, heavy, strong, fine-grained, and beautiful. It shrinks in seasoning, works easily, stands well when not exposed. It is used for spools, woodenware, and other small articles, as well as for interior finish and cabinet work. Figured birch is one of the most beautiful of American cabinet woods.[44] Birch is often stained so as to imitate cherry and mahogany; the best imitations of the latter wood are of birch. Birch is commercially divided, according to the quantity of heartwood present, into white birch and red birch. The wood is "white" when the amount is small, and as heartwood increases with age the same tree might at one time afford white and at another red wood.
Birch trees may be known by their more or less laminated bark with its peculiar long horizontal lenticles or dashes. The [p069] leaves of the several birches differ but little, but the decided colors exhibited by their barks give names and serve to distinguish the species. Nine of the twenty-four known species of birch occur in North America; six are trees and the others low shrubs. Betula is said to be derived from bitumen. [p070]
FOOTNOTE
[42] Birch forms large forests in the North.
[43] Pliny and Plutarch agree that the famous books of Numa Pompilius, written 700 years before Christ, were upon birch-bark. (Keeler.)
[44] The banquet-hall of the famous Auditorium Hotel in Chicago is finished in birch. (Kidder.)