Louise Gilbert, age 12, or Philadelphia, PA or her question:

What is creosote?

Creosote turns up in the most unexpected places, It has a hundred jobs to do, it helps hold up endless miles of telephone wires. It helps keep the Super Chief safely running on its shiny rails4 It cleans up the smell in foul air, It adds a tangy flavor to baked ham. And it may even give you ease from a cold in the chest.

You can smell its clean, tangy odor on a tall telegraph pole. You can taste it in a slice of delicious baked ham. It has a pleasant, smoky taste. You may find a can of it on the farm, It is all ready to disinfect,, to drive off termites and seal out the weather. If it is fresh and very pure, it is a colorless, oily liquid, If it has boon exposed to air or has impurities it is a yellowish brown color. Actually it is a complex mixture of phenol and menthol substances. It is present in wood and coal fuels,

Creosote is one more of the fuel wastes that man has recovered and put to use ‑ to a hundred uses. The finest creosote is made from beechwood, The beechwood is burned and distilled with steam, The oily creosote is carried off with the steam in vapor form, The vapor is captured and cooled into liquid creosote. Other creosote is distilled from coal and even from shale rocks,

The word creosote is coined from older words which mean meat preserver. That delicious ham was prepared in a smoke house. Smoke and fumes from the wood fire seeped into the' meat. Also present was a small amount of creosote, These substances prevent the meat from rotting, They discourage the little bacteria that want to food upon it, They also add their tangy, smoky flavor to the ham.

Creosote also acts as a life preserver to the telegraph polo, And one of its biggest jobs is to protect the wooden ties that hold the metal railroad tracks. These poles and ties are treated with creosote before they are put into place, This is a steaming job, done in an airtight chamber.

The ties are stacked and the creosote is heated until it becomes a dense heavy vapor. In the hot airtight chamber the moisture is driven out from the wood, The dense, oily vapor seeps in to take its place. Then the ties are taken out and allowed to dry.

Once outdoors this creosote wood tends to shed. moisture. It refuses to rot away in rainy weather, Andy though you may enjoy a tiny tang of creosote in your hams the termites do not. They detest the stuff, They tend to ignore telegraph poles railroad ties and fence posts which have been treated with creosote.