In 1853 Mr. W. Kendall, of Blawith, Lancashire, took out a patent for improvements in machinery for turning and hollowing wooden boxes, or cutting out solid wood into boxes or other receptacles of a like class. The apparatus consisted in general form of a horizontal spindle, carrying a species of chuck, which was fitted with a projecting circular gauge of the size of the outside of the box to be hollowed. In the centre of the chuck and gauge was a cutter made up of a small tool, fitted into a second revolving chuck in such a way as to permit a small portion only of the cutting edge to project. The wood blank is turned in a separate lathe. This blank is placed with its axis coincident with the axis of the cutter spindle; it is urged longitudinally forward by a runner, its end being inserted in the gauge, whilst the revolving cutter scoops out the wood. The cutter and its position as regards the centre of revolution were so arranged as to cut the hollow to the required gauge of box.

Amongst miscellaneous wood-working machines. must be mentioned Messrs. Greenwood and Batley's machines for manufacturing gun stocks and other warlike materials. Several series of these machines have been erected by them for the Government at Woolwich, Enfield, and elsewhere, leaving little in the manufacture of a gun stock to be performed by hand, the recess for receiving the lock even being cut out by mechanical means. This operation is novel and somewhat difficult to perform. A series of five cutters are mounted on five separate spindles, each fitted in a separate slide arranged in a rotating circular frame. Each slide has a vertical and horizontal movement. The gun stock and a hardened steel model of the recess required to be

cut are fixed on a table sliding horizontally at right angles to the horizontal motion of the cutter slides. The cutter spindles run at a high speed, and are brought into operation in succession, and by compounding the motions any shaped recess can be accurately formed, each cutter being governed by a tracer' which travels over the surface of the required model.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MISCELLANEOUS MACHINERY FOR WORKING WOOD

continued.

SEVERAL attempts have been made to supersede manual labour in felling trees in the forest, but, owing to the difficulties of situation or manipulation, hitherto with only qualified success; and although possibly under special circumstances mechanical means may be employed economically, we are of opinion that the day is far distant when the sound of the woodman's axe will

be banished by steam machinery. Inventors in this direction include Thompson, Fousèque and Cordes, Ransome, and others. Thompson exhibited an apparatus for this purpose as far back as our International Exhibition of 1862. This consisted of a couple of saws let into an endless band reciprocating between two pulleys. One pulley was fixed on either side of the tree to be felled, and one of them was arranged to pivot in a circular segmental slide concentric with the stationary pulley. The saw was fed into the tree by shifting the saw frame towards it radially upon the fixed pulley as a centre; after the tree was cut half-way through the saw was moved to the other side and the operation repeated.

A few years since Messrs. Ransome and Co., of

London, patented a machine for felling and cross-cutting trees. This machine briefly consists of a steam cylinder of small diameter, but arranged with a long stroke. This cylinder is mounted on a wrought-iron frame, and arranged to pivot by means of a hand wheel and worm, gearing into a toothed quadrant fitted to the back of the cylinder. The saw is fixed directly on to the end of the piston rod, and arranged to travel in guides; the teeth of the saw are formed to cut only during the backward stroke. The cylinder is supplied with steam from a portable boiler by means of flexible tubing, and the machine, when used for felling, is attached by a screw to a trident-pointed bar driven into the tree itself. After the saw has progressed some little way in its cut wedges are driven into it, to prevent the saw being pinched or buckled and to guide the fall of the tree. Four men are required to manipulate.

Another method of felling trees by means of revolving cutters has recently been tried, but without much success. The plan pursued was to mount in a frame a lever carrying two arms, which were adjustable horizontally to the size of the tree. On these arms were mounted revolving cutters, which made an incision into either side of the tree; to keep the machine taut a chain actuated by a winch was attached to the frame and encircled the tree.

A portable tree-feller and sawing machine was patented by W. H. Smyth in 1878. It consisted of a reciprocating saw, united by a connecting-rod with a cross head, working on guides. The guides are loosely united at their rear end with the driving axle, so that they move round it as a centre as the saw makes its cut. The driving crank is formed in this axle between

the guides, and is connected with the connecting-rod. A lug on the latter actuates a paul gearing with a ratchet on the end of a spindle, to the other end of which is fixed a pinion gearing with a rack formed on the frame at the upper end of the machine, so that at each stroke the saw is fed forward into the cut.

In 1874 also Fousèque and Cordes, of Paris, patented an apparatus for cutting down trees.

An antifriction or rolling cam-press for extracting the stumps of trees, the invention of Mr. Dicks, an American, should be mentioned; although it has never come into much use, it was of great strength, and possessed several features of novelty and interest to engineers.

During the erection of our International Exhibition of 1851 a series of machines were designed by Paxton, Birch, Furness, and Cooper for cutting gutters, shaping hand rails, sash bars, &c., and sawing, planing, and moulding the various wood work used in the erection.

A considerable number of patents have been obtained in connection with carving machinery. Mr. J. Gibbs obtained one in 1829 for a machine for shaping and recessing in low relief, shaping busts, &c. Irving's patent in 1843 consists chiefly of improvements and modifications of Gibbs's, but he claims all combinations for carving in which the swing frame carrying the cutters and table carrying the wood have both circular motions.

Jordan's well-known system of carving machinery by means of revolving tools was patented in 1845. It was extremely ingenious and novel in many of its working details, but, being somewhat complex and elaborate, has never come into extended use. Some