SUNDRY USES OF SPLIT WOOD. 151, 



has to be bent inwards. In the absence of aspen-wood, wood 

 of lime or poplar is used in Germany for these boxes. 



4. Wood-Wool 



Wood-Wool may be mentioned here, which is made from 

 even-«;-raiued wood, chiefly coniferous, though any species of 

 wood may be used, in round pieces one to two feet long, and is 

 used instead of hay, seaweed, &c., as packing-material; for 

 stuffing chairs, and other furniture ; as stable litter ; for pre- 

 serving ice, and in surgery, &c. It is also made into ropes. 



Villeroy, in Schranberg, compresses very fine wood-wool under 

 high pressure into a sort of papier-mache which is very durable, 

 and is used for rules, carvings, ornaments, &c. 



The machine for making wood-wool consists of an implement 

 working in a groove, and composed of a number of small vertical 

 knives which cut the wood in the direction of its fibres, and a 

 plane moving vertically which cuts-otf the separate strands of 

 wood. Such a machine can turn-out three cwt. of moderately 

 fine wool in a day. 



5. Slender Pieces of Wood. 



Slender pieces of w^ood are used for making handles for paint- 

 brushes and pens, flower-sticks,&c., also wooden thread for making 

 lucifer- matches and other articles. Fissile straight -grained 

 sprucewood is used for these purposes. The pieces used for paint- 

 brush and pen handles and flower-sticks are in section either round, 

 semi-circular, oval, or quadrangular, and of various lengths up to 

 5 feet. They ai'e prepared from wood in the rough by machines. 

 Grasenau, in Bavaria, is one of the chief seats of this industry. 



Wooden thread is now prepared on a large scale, either in round 

 pieces of sprucewood 8 to 30 feet long, or in short pieces, used 

 for lucifer-matches in Germany and Sweden. 



The round pieces, usually jVth of an inch (2 mm.) thick, 

 are made only from the finest grained sprucewood, and the 

 refuse of musical instrument wood may be thus utilized. 

 They used to be made by manual labour with Romer's plane, 

 which, instead of an ordinary cutting blade, has a blade with a 

 number of funnel-shaped grooves, each of which cuts-out a 

 cylindrical thread. After a btycr of thread had been planed 



