WOOD-CAKVING. 609 



and sufficiently strong, the cuts should be along their lines of 

 greatest extension. The butt is therefore split into from four 

 to six sectors, from which the core and bark are removed and 

 the shape roughly hewn- out with an adze. The farther finish 

 is given to the articles with special instruments, which are 

 bent according to its shape, and of which Figs. 344 and 345 

 represent general types. 



The remarkable progress which has been made recently in 

 wood-working machines favours the idea that handwork on 

 rough wood-carving will become in time more and more 

 replaced by machinery. The turning-lathe is already largely 

 used for round articles, whilst machines have been invented 

 by which almost any shape may be given to wooden articles. 



Wooden shoes (sabots) are made by hand, of the wood of 

 beech, alder, birch, hornbeam, walnut or poplar, the split 

 pieces first being trimmed roughly into shape by a short 

 hatchet and then finished with various curved instruments. 

 Trees 2 feet to 2J- feet in diameter at height of chest are 

 preferred for this purpose. In order to give the shoes a dark 

 colour and preserve them from splitting whilst being gradually 

 dried, they are smoked. The finer kinds are made of poplar, 

 or willow, and blackened. The Departement of Lozere, in 

 France, alone produces 600,000 pairs of wooden shoes yearly. 



Wooden soles (ydlochea) for leather boots, and wooden 

 pattens and clogs, are made largely in France and Saxony by 

 machinery. Clogs are made in Britain of alder. Shoe- 

 makers' lasts are made chiefly of hornbeam-wood, and failing 

 that of beech or sycamore ; there are large factories of these 

 articles in Bohemia and Saxony, in which machinery is used. 

 [Wooden heels of women's boots are made extensively in 

 Normandy. Tr.] 



Broom-heads and brush-backs are made chiefly of beech and 

 cherry-wood. They are made chiefly at Globenstein in the 

 Erz mountains, at Esslingen, and at Todtenau in the Black 

 Forest, where 25,000 to 30,000 worth of broomheads are 

 made yearly. [There is a small factory for brush-backs at 

 Villers Cotterets. Tr.] 



Wood is used mostly green for rough wood-carving, as it is 

 then easier to work. 



F.U. R B 



