172 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



inferior kind, are made, the log moves forward, and 

 the veneer is cut at the rate of about one foot 

 of length in four seconds. Allowing the depth of 

 the log to be two feet, the quantity of veneer taken 

 off wovild, by one of those machines alone, be two 

 hundred and foity square feet in an hour. Where 

 the wood is harder, or of more value, the motion is 

 considerably slower ; but, even then, the quantity cut 

 by one machine, as compared with that which sawyers 

 would cut in the same time, is, independently of the 

 sa^^ng of wood, and the superiority of the veneers, 

 almost incredible to any one who has not actually 

 witnessed the operation. 



The circular saw of eighteen feet diameter, at 

 Messrs. Watson's mill, makes thirty-two revolutions in 

 a minute. We observed a veneer of a log of mahogany, 

 four feet six inches long, by thirty-three inches wide, 

 cut in eighty seconds. The smaller saw, at which 

 inferior timber is cut, has a quicker revolution, 

 called a tumbling motion ; and by this we noticed 

 a veneer of a piece of mahogany six feet six inches 

 long, by twelve inches wide, cut in twenty-five seconds. 



The quantity of veneer that can, by means of these 

 machines, be sawed out of a given quantity of timber, 

 is astonishing. Those who are reckoned respectable 

 cabinet-makers do not, in general, wish to have more 

 than eight or nine thicknesses out of the inch ; but 

 those who manufacture furniture for occasional sale, 

 and are in consequence indifferent as to the quality 

 of the timber, and the durability of their work, often 

 have the inch cut into fifteen or sixteen thicknesses. 

 The extent to which a log cut in this last manner 

 would extend, is wonderful. Suppose a log fifteen 

 feet long, and three feet in each of its other dimen- 

 sions, cut into fifteen thicknesses to the inch, it 

 would be spread out to the vast expanse of about an 

 acre and three quarters ; und, when cut for the more 



