ABOUT CARPENTERS. 243 



edly, in a time in which plays dealt so much with the supernatural, 

 playwriters would have done nothing, had they not found full support 

 in carpenters of superior capacity. The name of William Van Schep- 

 dael, a carpenter who, assisted by a mason, Henry Vits, covered an arm 

 of the Seine, at Paris, with a vault some thousand yards long, sup- 

 ported by only eighteen hfcndred wooden pillars, in order to have the 

 space utilized for building purposes, is unknown even to the majority 

 of his fellow tradesmen, but his work remains, and is, even at present, 

 one of the industrial glories of Paris. 



In order to avoid repetitions, in connection with the history of car- 

 pentry in England, it will be sufficient to state that, begun as anywhere 

 else, it kept step with the development of the country, yet we feel 

 bound particularly to mention English ship-building. The geographi- 

 cal position of the land, which naturally determines its inhabitants' 

 tastes for seafaring, explains the progress of ship-building there. 

 Although the fleets of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, of Spain and Portugal, 

 had, at different times, won great fame, England eclipsed them all. 



It was the privilege of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries 

 to fix carpentry on a thorough scientific basis. The works of Monge, 

 his lessons of descriptive geometry ; the profound works of Prony, on 

 statics, hydrostatics, and hydrodynamics ; the researches and discoveries 

 of Lalande, Inghirami, and many others formed a wealth of scientific 

 principles from the application of which carpentry naturally derived 

 unspeakable advantage. Regular schools were founded, among which 

 that of Monge ranks first. Thence have come Krafft, Hassenfratz, 

 Morisot, and scores of carpenters who raised the art to the level of a 

 science. 



In several States of the Union the three stages of civilization al- 

 luded to in the beginning of our sketch are shown in a striking man- 

 ner ; there, on the same farm, the log-cabin, the frame-building and 

 the brick house are still frequently seen ; what has been in Europe 

 the work of centuries, here has been that of a generation, and yet it 

 represents an improvement on former work. It is a peculiarity of 

 American frame-buildings to have all the improvements of the best- 

 built stone houses in Europe. Americans have done with carpentry 

 what was before deemed to be a privilege of masonry and iron exclu- 

 sively. If we dared express our opinion, we would say that, as regards 

 architecture, carpentry is here ahead of masonry. In comparing the 

 pleasant frame-houses of the American farmers with the half-ruined 

 brick dwellings of the French and Italian peasants (who are, however, 

 the most comfortable of European country people), it is to be doubted 

 whether masonry is really indicative of a more advanced civilization. 

 Were we not to make great allowance for the peculiar circumstances 

 in which this country has developed its moral and material faculties, 

 we would solve the question against the generally accepted theory, 

 and proclaim carpentry still the greatest agent of progress. Carpentry 



