luble in that liquid, is soon extracted by it, and then the particles of the wood separate. The best timbers for being placed in water are those containing resins which water cannot dissolve: the viscid juice of the fruit-trees is a gum, and not a resin.

FANCY WOODS.

EVEN at a comparatively early stage of the arts, mankind appear to have made use of the bright or variegated colours of wood, to give beauty both to their dwellings and their furniture. The temple built by King Solomon was overlaid on the inside with boards of cedar:-"all was cedar; there was no stone seen"; and among the most ancient specimens of ornamental furniture that are to be met with, we find that attempts have been made to heighten the effect by the contrast of various kinds of wood. Although, both in the materials and the designs, these be inferior to the productions of modern art, many of the cabinets which are still preserved have much higher claims to notice than their mere antiquity.

In all these works a veneer or thin plate of the fancy wood is laid down in glue, upon the surface of a plainer description. This process is of course cheaper than if the whole work were made of the solid fancy wood. The beauty of fancy wood arises in many sorts from its being cross-grained, or presenting the fibres endways or obliquely to the surface. These different positions of the fibres, as well as their different colours in grained woods, give a clouded and mottled variety to the surface; and when some of the parts are partially transparent, as is the case with fine mahogany, the surface gives out a play of different tints, as the observer shifts his place, or the

light falls upon them, and consequently is reflected at different angles.

In the earlier stages of the art of cabinet making, and before the forests of the tropical regions had been explored for those beautiful woods which have since added so much to the elegance of modern furniture, the veneering and ornamenting were in woods of native growth. None of these have the deep and warm tints of the finest of the foreign; but the figures with which they are marked are often very beautiful. The yew, which, with its other tints, blends a certain trace of pink or rose-colour, and when it is gnarled or knotty, has a very rich appearance, was the wood used for the finest and most costly works. The common veneering timber was walnut; but as that has but few of those variegations, which are technically termed curls, the works ornamented with it were rather deficient in beauty. The knotty parts of "pollard" oaks, and "pollard" elms, are much better adapted for the purpose of ornament; but as the grain of both is open, and as it is apt to rise, and as the earlier cabinet-makers were not so well acquainted with the art of varnishing, as those of modern times, the beauties of these woods were not turned to the proper account.

When mahogany was first introduced as a cabinet timber, it seems to have been in the dark-coloured, hard, and straight-grained trees, which are now used for chairs, and other articles, in which the solid timber is preferred; and on that account mahogany was not much used in combination with other woods. When, however, its great value was known-the ease with which it can be cut, the improvement that varnish gives to its colours, the firmness with which it holds in glue, and the improvement which, when properly taken care of, it gains in time-it was found that good mahogany was much too valuable a timber

for being used solid; and it began to be employed as the staple timber in veneering. Other foreign woods, some of them lighter and others darker, were employed for borders and ornaments: but mahogany was used for the body of the work; and when it came to be so used, a great revolution was effected in the art of cabinet-making. On the first introduction of mahogany, the same process was resorted to, that had before been practised with the walnut and other woods, and effect was sought to be produced by quartering pannels, forming them of gyrony* of sectors, with the grain in opposite directions, and other fantastic and unnatural arrangements; but in course of time, a better taste was introduced, and the object was to make the whole surface have the same appearance as if the work had been made solid out of the rich timber. This was one step toward the attainment of a purer style; but the continuity of the surface was still interrupted by ill-sorted additions. The breadth of the mahogany, which would in itself have been beautiful, was broken by bands and strings of other wood, without much regard to the harmony of the colours; and thus that which, with the veneer alone, would have been chaste and classical, was reduced to a piece of patch work.

The veneering, whether done in mahogany or any other wood, was at first very expensive. The veneers were cut by the hand; and thus the piece cut off was of unequal thickness in the different parts, the wood was mangled by the operation of cutting, and the finest pieces, which, as has been said, are cross-grained, or have the fibres across their thickness, were always in danger of being broken. It had been found that veneers laid upon good bodies of timber, whether of the more coarse mahoganies, or of

* A term of heraldry, in which a shield is formed in sectors from the centre.

any other kind, were better, in point both of beauty and of standing without warping, than solid timber; but the cutting of the veneers by the hand was very laborious, and wasted the timber, so that, though the plan was a good one, it was expensive.

When the harder and more unmanageable species of fancy woods came to be used, the difficulty and expense were further increased; and though more beauty and variety were imparted to cabinet furniture, they were imparted at a corresponding increase of expense. Nor was it till the invention of machinery for the cutting of wood into veneers, by Mr. Brunel, that we had the full advantage of the beautiful art of veneering.

The machinery used for this purpose consists of circular saws, driven by mechanical power, and they have so diminished the price of cutting veneers, that the sav ing is immense. Thus, those classes of the people who, not long ago, had even the favourite articles of their furniture in deal, or in the coarser woods, which are the growth of this country, now have them in mahogany, or in some of the less common foreign woods. Independently of their superior beauty, (and that is a matter of more consequence than many would be disposed to allow,) these foreign woods have the ad vantage of durability, both in their structure and their colours. There are few of the indigenous woods of Britain into which the worm does not eat; and there are none of them in which the colours have not a tendency to come to the same shade, when long used, unless they are protected by varnish; while, on the other hand, the fancy woods from the tropical countries, are generally, if not universally, proof against the worm in England, and they are not apt to lose their colours. Thus the introduction of machinery, for the purpose of cutting veneers, has been a material saving both in the cost and the wear of furniture, while it has enabled the workman to extend

to a surface of thousands of feet, any fine piece of timber that he may meet with, and which, before the invention of that machinery, he could not have extended to as many hundreds.

The value to which a single log of fine timber is turned, by means of the improved sawing machinery, is really incredible to those who have not witnessed the operation. Thus, when the cabinet-maker has occa sion for veneers, he has only to purchase a log of the wood which suits his purpose, send it to the saw mill, and he has it returned cut up to the thickness that he wishes, in a very short time, and at a trifling expense.

In the vicinity of London, there are several mills for the cutting of veneers; but we do not know that there are any in more general or more constant employment than one we have had an opportunity of inspectingthat of Messrs. Watson, at Battersea, which was set up, about sixteen years ago, by Mr. Brunel. Their apparatus is driven by steam, and consists of a number of circular saws, the largest of which is eighteen feet in diameter. One side of those saws is a plane kept perfectly true, by a strong and well bound frame-work, to the circumference of which the saw is attached. The teeth of the saw are rather large than otherwise, in order that it may not clog with the saw-dust, and thus tear the finer veneers; and it revolves with considerable velocity. The log of timber which is to be cut into veneers is fastened upon a frame, with the piece in the direction in which it is to be cut, in a vertical position. The frame that carries forward the log is moved at a rate which may be varied according to the quality of the timber that is cut. It has a rack on the under part, in which a pinion works. In cutting coarse stuffs, such as the soft and straight-grained mahogany, of which the bottoms of drawers, and other internal works of an