Monday, Something different
Here�s a different trivia. Not too difficult but highly edited to prevent making it too easy. What does this involve? North America. Famous occurance that led to major legislation.
"Q. _________, will you please tell us where you live and what your business is?
A. I live at Madison, Wisconsin, and I am employed there at the United States Forest Products Laboratory.
Q. Are you in charge of the Department?
A. I am.
Q. What are your duties at the F.P.L.?
A. One of my duties is to take charge of the identification of wood sent to the Federal Government for identification. If they are sent to a government office, they are supposed to be referred to Madison where I have charge of their identification.
Q. Do your duties also include the identification of wood in connection with crimes committed?
A. Yes.
EDIT
Q. Now, sir, let me ask you again, - I show you Exhibit ...26 and I show you ____ 16, and I ask you what, if any, is the relationship between them.
A. As the result of a careful study of the two, I have come to the conclusion that those two pieces at one time were one piece. They have been cut in two.
Q. Why do you say that they are the same piece and have been separated?
A. I personally took this ____, 16, from this � and inserted cut nails into the nail holes �.
Q. You are indicating four nail holes then: is that it?
A. Yes.
Q. Now what about them?
A. I took � those are cut nail holes � I took some cut nails, the cut nails which were removed from this board �. I placed them into the nail holes in this� and those nails fit perfectly.
Q. Let me understand. You mean you took nails out of a part � which is here in evidence,..., those very nails, and you then put them into those holes,� known as 16.
A. Yes. They fit perfectly. Then with those nails in those holes and projecting from the lower side, I took that � and laid it over the joist in this portion of the picture shown in Exhibit....
Q. When you say laid them on the joists, you mean just as they were as a part of the _____?
A. Yes. There were nail holes along the�side of the _____ and I found that these protruding nails stuck into this� fit exactly in the four nail holes which were in those joists.
Q. All right. Tell us what your opinion is.
A. In my opinion that ____ had at one time been nailed down there on those joists, because it would be inconceivable to think � it wouldn't be possible that there would have been another board somewheres with cut nail holes in them, spaced exactly like these nail holes are in the joists, the same distance apart, the same direction from each other.
Q. Did it require any manipulation at all, or did they fit perfectly?
A. They fit perfectly. Not only as to the direction and spacing, but slant. One of these nail holes in here particularly is slanting, and the nail hole in the joist had the same slant.
Q. Is that the only reason for your opinion that ____16 and...were at one time the same piece of lumber?
A. When the�and nails were inserted in the joist, the edge was perfectly parallel to the adjoining board.
Q. How do you explain the fact that when you put... � No, when you put ____ 16 on the joist as you have indicated � how do you explain the fact that there is a little distance, a half an inch, between the two � boards?
A. That piece had been cut off.
Q. Tell us why you say so.
A. For one thing, this picture shows it to be found in the attic, that a saw cut had been made at the end of this [adjacent] board; in the adjoining board is a little cut right in line with the end of this board. Furthermore, there was sawdust on the lath and plaster of the ceiling below, right underneath the end of this board. Furthermore, this board projects over the joist. Now, a carpenter wouldn't let the end of a board lap over like that and hang free, he would put the joint right on the joists there, which also indicates that that was not the original condition.
Furthermore, by matching up the grain in this board in the floor and this rail from the ladder I find that the grain matches practically perfectly, considering the gap that is between the two."
What evidence is being presented and why?