Christine Drositis, age 9, of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, for her question:

What is creosote?

This tacky stuff has a tangy smell of fresh pines mingled with tar and smoky campfires. Brownish creosote is painted on wooden posts and fences, on railroad ties and sometimes on telephone poles. It sinks down into the boxy cells of the wood and makes them stronger. A coating of creosote helps to preserve wood from the weather. It acts like a raincoat and also stops the wood from becoming so dry that it cracks in the heat of summer. Besides, bugs of all kinds detest the tang of creosote and wood chewing animals cannot abide its flavor. Coats of creosote also help to protect certain roofing tiles and the wooden walls of outdoor sheds.

Pure creosote is a pale, oily liquid. Most of the creosote used outdoors is tinted yellowish brown with tiny fragments of unnecessary impurities. The main ingred¬ient in the creosote recipe comes from coal tar. The oily stuff also can be taken from beechwood tar found in the tacky ashes left from burned beechwood. Ordinary creosote is poisonous to plants and bugs,to animals and people. But its purest form may be used in disinfectants and helpful germ killers.