KILN-DRYING HARD WOOD, 375 



pretty bewildered field of education. After mature deliberation 

 I became fully convinced that in the latter capacity my faculties 

 will be more likely to be beneficial to my fellow-creatures. These 

 are my reasons for appearing as a teacher, or rather educator." 



Mr. Neef left no male descendants, but two married daughters 

 are still living in this country. 







KILN-DRYING HARD WOOD. 



By 0. S. WHITMOKE. 



AMONG the many changes that have taken place in the manu- 

 - facture and handling of lumber, there is none more marked 

 or interesting than in the method of preparing lumber for use by 

 getting rid of its natural or acquired moisture. For a century 

 and a half after sawed lumber came into use, none but natural 

 means were used for drying it, preparatory to its consumption in 

 the building and kindred arts. Even in comparatively modern 

 times, when sash, doors, and blinds were made by hand, and floor- 

 ing and ceiling were dressed and matched in the same manner, if 

 a person concluded to build some time in the future, the stock for 

 these purposes was often bought after being weather-dried as 

 much as possible and stored away in barns, lofts, and garrets, 

 where it was not seldom left for years. 



There can be no denying that this stock made excellent work, 

 though it became not infrequently discolored from want of a cir- 

 culation of air, which fact became so well understood that when 

 at last attempts were made to shorten the drying period by arti- 

 ficial means, they all embodied some attempt, more or less crude, 

 to create a circulation, to the end that the air that had enveloped 

 the lumber until it had absorbed a portion of the moisture should 

 be thrown or forced out of the drying room or building. 



The first attempts at artificial drying did not contemplate gen- 

 eral stock or drying lumber for shipping, the first dry-houses be- 

 ing usually nothing more than a one-story frame structure built 

 over a low cellar excavated in the side of a hill, with a slatted 

 floor above and a latticed cupola on the roof. A brick or tile 

 furnace or arch was built in the cellar, from which extended a 

 number of sheet-iron pipes which, while conveying the smoke to 

 the chimney, also acted as radiators. The furnaces were built so 

 as to be stoked from the outside through an arch in the wall on 

 the down-hill side. After the introduction of cast-iron stoves, 

 they were often substituted for the brick or tile furnaces, and in 

 some cases these in turn were superseded by wrought-iron cylin- 

 ders like steam-boiler shells. 



