2. Pores all minute or indistinct, evenly distributed throughout annual ring. (a) With conspicuously broad rays. 1. Sycamore. Fig. 151. Rays practically all broad. Color light brown, often with dark stripes or "feather grain." Wood of medium weight and strength, usually cross-grained, difficult to split. The wood is used for general construction, woodenware, novelties, interior finish, and boxes. 2. Beech. With only a part of the rays broad, the others very fine, Fig. 151. Color pale reddish brown to white; uniform. Wood heavy, hard, strong, usually straight-grained. The wood is used for cheap furniture, turnery, cooperage, woodenware, novelties, cross-ties, and fuel. Much of it is distilled. (b) Without conspicuously broad rays. 1. Cherry. Rays rather fine but very distinct. Color of wood reddish brown. Wood rather heavy, hard, and strong. The wood is used for furniture, cabinet work, moulding, interior finish, and miscellaneous articles. 2. Maple, Fig. 152. With part of the rays rather broad and conspicuous, the others very fine. Color light brown tinged with red. The wood of the hard maple is very heavy, hard and strong; that of the soft maples is rather light, fairly strong. Maple most closely resembles birch, but can be distinguished from it through the fact that in maple the rays are considerably more conspicuous than in birch. The wood is used for slack cooperage, flooring, interior finish, furniture, musical instruments, handles, and destructive distillation. 3. Tulip-tree, yellow poplar or whitewood. Rays all fine but distinct. Color yellow or brownish yellow; sapwood white. Wood light and soft, straight-grained, easy to work. The wood is used for boxes, woodenware, tops and bodies of vehicles, interior finish, furniture, and pulp. 4. Red or sweet gum. Rays all fine but somewhat less distinct than in tulip tree. Color reddish brown, often with irregular dark streaks producing a "watered" effect on smooth boards; thick sapwood, grayish white. Wood rather heavy, moderately hard, cross-grained, difficult to work. The best grades of figured red gum resemble Circassian walnut, but the latter has much larger pores unevenly distributed and is less cross-grained than red gum. The wood is used for finishing, flooring, furniture, veneers, slack cooperage, boxes, and gun stocks. [Illustration: FIG. 152.--Maple. (Magnified 25 times.)] 5. Black or sweet birch, Fig. 151. Rays variable in size but all rather indistinct. Color brown, tinged with red, often deep and handsome. Wood heavy, hard, and strong, straight-grained, readily worked. Is darker in color and has less prominent rays than maple. The wood is used for furniture, cabinet work, finishing, and distillation.