Although the focus of the wreck is not on wood, some interest for wood does
exist. Every two weeks or so somebody reports finding one of the trusty old
sites on wood to the wreck, to be greeted by multiple cries of "Great find!
I never knew that!". So as to avoid wasted effort a small overview of some
of the more directly useful sites dealing with wood.
PvR

FPL:
- intro-page of the Forest Products Laboratory:
http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/

- technical properties of wood
http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/techmenu.html
including two downloadable books on US-woods

- the FPL "Wood Handbook" (downloadable):
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/FP.../fplgtr113.htm

- common and scientific names of wood
(best database around, with a fairly low level of error):
http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/CommNames2000.html
[apparently off-line more often than not, and usually reports:
"The system has encountered an error that was logged"]

OTHER SOURCES:
"The American Woods" (pictures):
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/archives/forestry/hough/

- lots of pictures (fun), but short on accuracy and real information
full version (slow):
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...indextotal.htm
small version (faster):
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...pics/index.htm

- wood pictures of 1773 (older than the US!) in four languages:
English titlepage at p7
English introduction at p13
the first picture-page is at 16 (slow!)
the captions to p16 are at p17 (p18 has the captions to p19, etc):
http://www.library.tudelft.nl/cgi-bi...ookname=Houtku
nde&page=1

for a more extensive link-page see:
http://www.nehosoc.nl/paginalinks.htm

BOOKS:
entry-level books on wood are
"Good Wood Handbook" by Albert Jackson & David Day (cheapest and best)
"Woodworker's Guide to Wood" by Rick Peters (passing grades)
"Woodworker's guide to Selecting and Milling Wood" by Charles Self
(somewhat modest, pictorially, but written in a friendly style)

An intermediate level book:
"Harvesting Urban Timber" by Sam Sherrill

Adult books on wood are
"Understanding Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley
"Identifying Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley

For the moderately ambitious:
"Holzatlas" by Rudi Wagenfuhr