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CARPENTRY.* 



Carpentry. CARPENTRY is the art of fashioning and framing tim- 

 S " B ""Y" < ' her for the purposes of architecture, machinery, and 

 the like. Tt is distinguished from JOINERY, which 

 considers only the fashioning and adaptation of the 

 smaller and more curious works in wood, where the 

 chief requisites are convenience, neatness, or elegance 

 of form ; whereas carpentry is applied to the fitting 

 together of the greater masses, so as to combine with 

 magnitude, strength, durability, and economy. 



It is evident, therefore, that the intelligent car- 

 penter would require an intimate acquaintance with 

 the strength of the materials he employs ; the cohe- 

 sion and corpuscular force of their particles; the 

 principles of statics and mechanics, to enable him to 

 discover what may be the stress acting upon his work ; 

 and the mode in which strains are propagated through 

 the different parts of his framing, that he may be 

 thereby enabled effectually to resist them. 



Carpentry, therefore, is an important department 

 of physics. It constitutes one of the most beautiful 

 and useful applications of the liberal sciences to the 

 arts of life, and is a necessary part of the learning of 

 the engineer. 



The performances of the ancients in this art have 

 none of them reached our times. But the works of 

 modern carpenters are such as leave us little room for 

 regret. They might many of them challenge compari- 

 son with any thing that has ever appeared in the world. 

 .Importance Among modern nations, the value of the art is uni- 

 of carpeu- yersally acknowledged. But perhaps there was ne- 

 tr y V er a nation upon earth to which the science of car- 



pentry was of such immense consequence as our own. 

 Thousands of our ships, those noble specimens of 

 art, traverse the ocean. We have risen at home to a 

 pitch of wealth and prosperity unequalled in the his- 

 tory of the world. We have attained it, by the ex- 

 tent of our commerce, the superiority of our manu- 

 factures, and the improvement of our agriculture. 

 .And this chiefly by the wonderful multiplication of 

 machinery, and its application to almost every de- 

 scription of labour. Our many great works of pub- 

 lic utility, or private magnificence, have rendered our 

 country the seat and theatre of art. Add to all 

 this, that our declared enemy, by endeavouring as 

 far as in his power to prevent our usual supplies of 

 timber, has threatened to cut off the very sources of 

 our prosperity. In such a nation, where the physi- 

 cal sciences have been successfully and diligently cul- 

 tivated, which possesses many men of sufficient ge- 

 nius and ability ardently desirous to promote the pros- 

 perity of their country, it were natural to think that 

 this important science (for it well deserves the name) 

 would have received the greatest attention, would 

 \ have been prosecuted to the utmost limits of investi- 



gation, and would long ago have been arranged into 

 a body of doctrine, founded on the extensive expe- 



rience of our great masters, and illuminated by the Carpentry, 

 powerful torch of mathematical and physical learn- > -y 1 "'' 

 ing. 'But, strange to tell, we may search through 

 the compass of English literature, and scarcely find 

 a single work which profeaacs to treat of the science 

 of carpentry. 



The books which are usually in the hands of the 

 workman are totally destitute of any thing like prin- 

 ciple, and content themselves with showing the me- 

 thod of forming the draft which is to guide the saw 

 or the chisel. Neither the Royal Society of Lon- 

 don, or any other of our learned societies, has ever 

 published a single paper for the instruction of the 

 public in these matters. Indeed, almost the only 

 information our language can produce, is the result 

 of the labours of a single individual, detailed in a 

 work like our own. 



A work of much merit, which appeared from the 

 pen of a member of our national school for engineers, 

 contains, on this subject, little more than we find de- 

 livered two centuries ago by the learned Galileo. 



To look for any thing of the same nature in the 

 flimsy productions of our itinerant lecturers, arid po- 

 pular books of philosophy, were to search for know- 

 ledge and learningamong the school-books of children. 



In the present article, we pretend not to give a 

 complete treatise on the science of carpentry. Such 

 an undertaking would far exceed the limits of a work 

 like ours. But we can give a compendium of the 

 most useful information respecting the strength of 

 timber, and endeavour to elucidate the mode of ac- 

 tion in some of the more simple cases, that we may 

 from thence draw some practical maxims of construc- 

 tion, which may be of use to the inquisitive but in- 

 experienced carpenter. It is matter of regret, that 

 almost the whole of our knowledge of this useful 

 science is due to the labours of several learned fo- 

 reigners, to whose works alone we must have re- 

 course for any thing like profound investigation. But 

 these are, in a great measure, locked up from the 

 access of our national artists, and they have been 

 left by intuitive feeling, as it were, to elicit those prin- 

 ciples, and establish those maxims, which might have 

 been expected from the speculations of their learned 

 countrymen. Their success has shown us, that the 

 efforts of genius rise superior to the defects of edu- 

 cation. Although we are very far from wishing to 

 decry the well-earned fame of the great masters of 

 our day, yet it is not to be doubted, that even their 

 own confidence in their undertakings would be great- 

 er, and their success more certain, were their expe- 

 rience digested and regulated by scientific principles. 



We should wish to call the attention of some of 

 our learned countrymen, who have leisure and oppor- 

 tunity, to the prosecution of these investigations. 

 There is a wide field for research, and their labours 



The Editor has been indebted for the Theoretical part of this valuable article to ALEXANDER NIMMO, Esq. F. R. S. E. Civil 

 Engineer, and for the part on Constructive Carpentry, to Mr PETER NICHOLSON, Architect, whose attention has been long and 

 .-.uccessfully directed to this interesting subject. 



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