880 



CNICINE. 



COACH-MAKING. 



assafcetida, or of oil of turpentine, may be used. Sometimes tobacco 

 in the form of infusion or of smoke is employed ; but this requires the 

 greatest care. The second case to which we have alluded, in which 

 clysters are employed without medical superintendence, is that of 

 tobacco-smoke thrown into the rectum of drowned persons : a more 

 hurtful measure cannot be adopted ; it is now abandoned by all intelli- 

 gent persons. 



Where clysters are employed to alky pain, or arrest premature 

 action of the uterus, they generally contain tincture of opium, and are 

 of small bulk ; about a quarter of a pint of starch serves as the vehicle. 

 Where nourishment is the object, they are also of small bulk ; about 

 half a pint of beef -tea alone, or with powdered cinchona bark, and a few 

 drops of laudanum. Substances introduced into the rectum in a solid 

 form are called suppositories. 



CNICINE (C^H^O;,), an active principle found in the sub-order 

 CijnarocefhaltB of the Composite order of plants. It is neutral and 

 bitter. 



COACH. For a variety of information relating to the introduction, 

 commercial importance, and legislative supervision of hackney coaches, 

 mail coaches, stage coaches, cabriolets, Irish cars, and similar means of 

 public conveyance, see STAGE CARRIAGE. 



COACH-MAKING. The mechanical details involved in the manu- 

 facture of a coach or other vehicle depend, for any peculiarity which 

 they present, rather on the choice and combination of materials than 

 on the actual working processes. There are however a few points 

 which merit attention both as to materials and to processes. 



The timber employed in coach-building comprises ash, beech, elm, 

 oak, mahogany, cedar, deal, pine, fustic, larchwood, and birch. Mr. 

 Adams (' Treatise on Pleasure Carriages ') gives the reasons for the 

 selection among these species of wood, according to the purpose to 

 which it is to be applied. The timber mostly employed is English- 

 grown ath. The " hedge-row" ash, growing in open spots, is of slower 

 growth, but is much firmer, stronger, and tougher than that of the 

 " coppice," and is therefore preferred to it for making the heavy frame- 

 work of a carriage. Ash is rather a tough and fibrous than an elastic 

 wood, and is well calculated to bear the concussions to which the 

 supporting framework of a coach is exposed ; it is best fitted for use 

 when arrived at maturity, but before it has attained its extreme size ; 

 it is sometimes white at the heart, sometimes red, the former being best 

 fitted for the purpose in view ; it is sometimes so wrinkled in grain as 

 scarcely to be planed smooth, and is then in its toughest state ; it 

 acquires by steaming a plastic property, which enables it to be bent to 

 a form suited for carriage-timbers. These various qualities, together 

 with the absence of any tendency to twist or warp, render ash better 

 fitted than any other kind of timber for the skeleton framework of a 

 carriage. Beech is a timber used only in building carriages of an inferior 

 kind, since it cannot well bear alternation of air and moisture. Elm is 

 used largely for strong planking. Of the two kinds, " hedge-row " elm is 

 more employed than " wych " or " wick " elm. The grain of this wood is 

 curly and wavy, difficult to work, brittle, and apt to split ; but when once 

 brought into workable form, elm possesses great strength, especially 

 for the naves of wheels. Oak is not employed to any considerable 

 extent in coach-building ; but it forms the spokes of wheels [WHEEL], 

 and is used in some cases as a thin planking or " wainscot." Mahog- 

 any is chiefly in request for forming the panels or broad plain surfaces 

 of the body of a coach. In the use of this kind of wood there is a 

 difference between the cabinet maker and the coach-builder : the 

 former prefers " Spanish " mahogany, on account of the beautiful 

 curled grain which gives such diversity of light and shade ; whereas 

 the coach-builder distrusts it, because the curled grain prevents it 

 from being bent into the curvatures required in coach-making. " Hon- 

 duras " mahogany can be procured in planks four feet hi width, perfectly 

 straight-grained, and free from knots and blemishes, and is therefore a 

 kind of timber well fitted for bending. Cedar, of considerable width 

 and having a coarse grain, is sometimes used instead of mahogany for 

 coach-panels, when they are to be covered with leather : it is too 

 porous to receive a painted surface. Deal is employed for the flooring 

 of carriages, and also for panels which are to be covered. Wide 

 American Pine, cut into very thin boards, is used for the roofing. 

 Fustic, a hard yellow wood obtained from Central and South America, 

 is sometimes employed for the naves of wheels which are intended for 

 hot climates, as being less- liable to shrink than English timber. Lance- 

 vvod, a yellow, close, straight-grained, elastic but brittle wood, was 

 formerly much used for the straight shafts of carriages ; but when 

 curved shafts became general, the employment of this wood for the 

 purpose lessened. American Birch is much used for flat boarding, on 

 account of its great width, its homogeneous substance, its freedom from 

 rents, the smallness of its pore?, its ready yielding to the plane, and the 

 non-appearance of the grain when painted ; it is however brittle, and 

 cannot be bent like mahogany for panels. Sycamore, Chestnut, and 

 Plane-wood, are occasionally used as substitutes for some of the above- 

 mentioned woods. 



In working up these varieties of timber, tools and processes are 

 employed similar to those witnessed in many other trades. In the first 

 place, a " mould " of the coach body is prepared from the pattern, as 

 in the preparatory stage of ship-building ; that is, thin pieces of wood 

 are so cut out aa to denote the size, form, and curvatures of all the 

 eeparate parts of the coach; and these afterwards act as guides in 



cutting and shaping the timber. The working-operations are of two 

 wholly distinct lands, carried on by different sets of workmen : one 

 relates to the " body," and the other to the framework or " carriage ;' ' 

 the former depending more upon delicacy, and the latter upon 

 strength. In bending thin pieces of timber to form curved panels, the 

 wood is wetted on the side which is to be convex, and heated on that 

 which is to be concave : the unequal expansion of the two surfaces 

 or rather, the expansion of the one and the contraction of the other 

 produce the curvature, and it is the workman's business to secure 

 this curved form when once obtained. With a few exceptions, the 

 processes connected with coach-body making may be regarded as very 

 similar to those of cabinet-making. 



In the making of the carnage which supports the body, the flat surfaces 

 are so few in number that the plane is scarcely employed ; after the saw, 

 the chief cutting instrument is a hand-tool resembling a spoke-shave. 

 The complexity of the framework, and the number of pieces which 

 compose it, depend a good deal on the circumstance whether the 

 carriage has four wheels or only two, and whether drawn by one or 

 two horses. In the Denuet and the Stanhope, two-wheeled vehicles 

 drawn each by one horse, there is very little uuderframing. In the 

 Tilbury and the Cabriolet, pliable leathern braces are introduced 

 between the springs and the body of the vehicle. All these four have 

 shafts ; but in the Curricle, a two-wheeled vehicle for two horses, 

 now almost extinct, there were no shafts ; the body was suspended on 

 a frame consisting of two side-pieces and two cross-bars at each end ; 

 a pole inserted in this frame served to yoke the horses to the 

 vehicle. Where there are four wheels, the underframiug is more 

 complicated, since the wheels have to be connected one with another, 

 and also with the body. In some vehicles of this kind, there are 

 elliptical springs beneath the body and the axle ; while in others, 

 besides these springs, there are pliable leathern braces to connect the 

 body with the under-framework ; in which case the framework which 

 supports the fore and hind springs is connected together by a long 

 central piece of timber called the perch. Occasionally this perch is 

 made of iron, and is bent into a form called the " crane-neck," as a 

 means of enabling the coach to be turned more readily in a narrow 

 street. The general class of four-wheeled carriages for two horses, 

 such as the coach and the chariot, have double sets of springs : namely, 

 horizontal springs immediately on the axles, to support the carnage 

 and to intercept the concussion ; and circular upright springs to 

 sustain the body. If made close, such carriages comprise the varie- 

 ties of the Coach and the Chariot; if to open occasionally, the 

 Landau and the Landaulet ; if to remain permanently open with a 

 leathern hood or head, the Barouche and the Barouchet ; and a modi- 

 fication of this latter kind, the Britzscha. All these varieties of form 

 render necessary corresponding changes in the formation of the frame- 

 work beneath. The form and nature of the springs above alluded to 

 are described in SPRINGS. Many coach-makers now make use of gutta- 

 percha and vulcanised India-rubber, in parts where toughness and 

 elasticity are needed. 



The arrangements of the under parts of the mechanism depend a 

 good deal on the facilities afforded for turning the coach. In a four- 

 wheeled carriage there is an axle connecting the two fore-wheels, 

 and another connecting the two hind-wheels ; and if these two 

 axles were so fixed as to remain constantly parallel, the carriage 

 could not turn. In practice, the front axle is made to turn upon 

 a pivot, and the wheels connected with it are made small enough 

 to go under the framework of the carriage during the act of turning. 

 It is for this reason, and this alone, that the front wheels are made 

 smaller than the hinder ones ; and as a great disadvantage in draught 

 is thereby occasioned, various contrivances have been adopted for ren- 

 dering the use of somewhat larger wheels practicable. Sometimes the 

 body of the carriage is raised to a greater height ; sometimes a portion 

 of the under part of the body is cut away, to leave room for the turning 

 of the wheel. It was as a means of remedying these inconveniences 

 that Mr. Adams proposed the "sequirotal" construction of carriages. 

 As the inequality in the sizes of the fore- and hind-wheels is adopted 

 solely as a means of enabling the vehicle to be turned round, Mr. Adams 

 sought for some mode of enabling this turning to be effected even 

 when all the four wheels are of equal size. This he does by having 

 the carriage so divided in the middle as to turn upon a pivot ; or rather, 

 the pivot, or perch-bolt, which in a common carriage is placed imme- 

 diately between the two front wheels, is on the iequirotal principle 

 placed much farther back, by which the fore-wheels have so large a 

 radius in turning that they do not touch the body, and may therefore 

 be made of equal size with the hinder wheels. The mode of adjusting 

 this pivot depends upon the kind of carriage. lu a phaeton, which is 

 an open four-wheeled carriage with two seats, the front one higher 

 than the lower, the hinder half of the body is hinged to the front half. 

 In a chariot or a coach, the coach-box is connected with the framework 

 of the front wheels, and the body with that of the hind wheels, and 

 there is a pivot which connects the two halves together. There is 

 great ingenuity in this sequirotal system, but it has not come largely 

 into use. 



The axles of a carnage form an important part of the manufacture, 

 since they are the medium of communication from the wheels to the 

 body. When this part of the mechanism was made wholly of wood, its 

 general designation was " axle-tree ; " but iron is now more extensively 



