Patty Longworth, age 12, of Indianapolis, Ind... for her question:

What is Sopherwood?

We are told that Noah made his wonderful ark of sopherwood, but are not sure what kind of wood this was. Some say it was yellowwood, and oval this does not help us much   for there are hosts of trees called yellowwoods. There is a beautiful tall yellowwood of the southland with delicate foliage and big, white, fragrant blossoms. Its hard yellow wood yields a yellow dye. The wood from this tree is sometimes called gopherwood. The osage orange, the sweetleaf, the buckthorn and the smoketree are also yellowwood trees.

Gopherwood has nothing to do with our furry little ground squirrels. These get their gopher name from an old word for honeycomb because of the honeycomb tunnels they build in the ground. Noah's gopherwood had nothing to do with honeycombs or ground squirrels.