SINKAGE STUDIES I. THE MODE OF PENETRATION OF WATER INTO LOGS: PRELIMINARY FIELD EXPERIMENTS

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Abstract
The distribution of water in logs, floated in a lake, was determined and found similar to that in living trees. The trees examined belonged to the following species: jack pine, spruce, poplar and balsam, in which there is a relatively dry heartwood becoming wetter in the order named, the sapwood being wet all around, and birch in which the heartwood is equally as wet as the sapwood.The rate of radial penetration of water into the logs seems to increase in the order, birch, jack pine, spruce, balsam, poplar. Penetration takes place very slowly, even into sapwood. The advantage of a large proportion of relatively dry heartwood depends more on the initial buoyancy it confers, than on the greater resistance to penetration it may possess. Narrow outer rays and density of the wood diminish the rate of penetration in the samples studied. In air-dry logs, penetration of free water is also very slow; saturation of the cell walls precedes it at a more rapid rate. The gas in floated logs is enveloped by water and can escape only in solution. There is evidence that more gas may be liberated by fermentation of storage material in the parenchyma cells. Whether escape of gas or penetration of water is the leading factor in determining rate of sinkage is undecided at present.

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