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Clockwork

The chimes returned at Trinity Episcopal Church in Williamsport after Jim Zerfing, the church clock's longtime caretaker, and students from Pennsylvania College of Technology climbed 100 feet up the clock tower's narrow stairs to replace parts that had fallen into disrepair. Under the direction of Zerfing and Keith H. English, instructor of machine tool technology/automated manufacturing, students enrolled in manufacturing-related majors remade the gear shafts that hold the minute hand on each of the 135-year-old clock's four dials, made a duplicate bevel gear and helped to install a new motor. View all the clock photos.

Twittering Fagus grandifolia, The Great Beech in the Woods with a Story to Tell

There is a great and giant Beech tree in the woods near Allenwood. It holds a trail of names of those before us at Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Schneebeli Earth Science Center.  The trail is unknown. Who were those who came before and felt the urge to tweet?

Arborglyphs are carvings on trees that record names, dates, images, even poetry and prose. Beech, birch and aspen have traditionally been the trees of choice, preferred by most “artists.” These species’ smooth bark and light color make a ready-made canvas for carving.

Some consider arborglyphs to be a legitimate form of artistic expression and honor trees with these carvings. Others think it is just so much graffiti and another form of tree defacement. Most forest owners do not encourage the practice of carving on their trees.

But these immense beech trees hold an interesting place in history, the information technology of the past, as it were. Their history goes back to the Cherokee Indians in America and the Basque herders of the French and Spanish Pyrenees. Arborglyphs record history as human dwellers document their place in time, carving their names and sacred messages deeply into the soft, steel-grey bark. Tree glyphys, like the petro glyphs of the southwest, were even used during the Native American migration on the “Trail of Tears,” serving as path and information markers for generations to come; these are known as culturally modified trees.

Today, arborglyphs are often GPS documented, and at the end of their life, they take a permanent place in history at local museums.

Perhaps the demise of this tree will find Penn College students twittering: The tree has finally “bit the dust” and is being carved into beautiful sections to be preserved and displayed for the future, in the halls of the Earth Sciences building. Imagine the iron sculptures that the student welders can design to display these great pieces of forest art. Start drawing, welding students. The time is approaching as the beech is nearing the end of its place in woods history.

– Flora Eyster, part-time instructor of horticulture

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