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for sills, steps, troughs, billiard-table beds, sinks, lavatory 

 tops, tanks, urinals, mangers, chimney pieces, shelves, 

 tombstones, cisterns with galvanized bolts and nuts, ridge 

 rolls, ridge wings, etc. The slabs are sold random sizes, or 

 cut to specified dimensions. See " Slate or Slates." 



Slates. The various sizes of slates are thus named : 



Doubles . . . . . . .. 1 3 X 7 in. 



Ladies . . . . . . . . ..16x8,, 



Countesses . . . . . . 20 x 10 ,, 



Duchesses . . . . . . . . 24 x 12 ,, 



Imperials . . . . . . 27 x 36 



Queens 27 x 36 



The mode of trading in this century inclines to work upon 

 sizes, and not titles or state-names. See " Westmorland 

 Slates" and "Welsh Slates." 



Slating Battens or Slate Laths. Small strips of wood upon which 



the slates are fastened. See " Rock Laths." 



Sleepers or Sleeper Blocks. In railway construction, one of the 

 pieces of timber placed across the permanent way, to 

 which the rails are fastened in order to keep them in 

 position. 



Sleeper Joists. The joists used on the ground floor of houses. 



Sleeper Saw Benches. Powerful endless-chain feed benches, in 

 which sleeper blocks are fed forward by strong chains having 

 dogs at intervals, usually sawing the block down the centre, 

 forming two sleepers at each cut. 



Slice and Slicing. Implies " a thin broad piece " and " to cut or 

 to divide." It is curious that these terms have not attached 

 themselves to rotary veneer-cutting, where " peel and peel- 

 ing " have found lodgment. See " Slive and Slivering," 

 " Slash and Slashing," and " Peel and Peeling." 



Slide Rule. A mathematical instrument consisting of two parts, 

 one of which slides into the other, for the mechanical per- 

 formance of addition and subtraction, and, by means of long 

 arithmetic scales, for multiplication and division. 



Slings. The material for transporting wood from ship to shore or 

 from one point to another. 



Slive and Slivering. Terms related to " slash and slashing," or 

 " slice and slicing," and imply long, thin riven shreds of 

 wood. Their meaning is plainly seen in " firwood flooring- 

 boards " unquartered in the sawing, or cut tangentially 

 where the hard part of the grain (the summer wood) wears 

 into long splinters. Where the edge of the grain is presented 

 to wear, the flooring wears without slivering and more evenly. 

 See " Peel and Peeling " and " Yellow Pine Flooring." 



