152 INDUSTHIAL U.SKS OF WOOD. 



away, th^ wood was planed smooth by means of an ordinary 

 plane, and a fresh hiyer of threads then removed. 



At present manual labour has been replaced by machinery 

 constructed on the principle of Homer's plane. The tli reads 

 are then woven with stout twine into blinds, floor-coverings, 

 table-covers, iSic, and are specially useful for chicks in tropical 

 countries, which, hanging before doors and windows, allow 

 sufficient ventilation, while excluding the glare of sunlight and 

 insects. 



The short pieces used for lucifer-matches are made from the 

 most various woods, especially those of spruce, Scotch pine, silver- 

 tir and aspen. They are prepared in factories according to three 

 different methods. The oldest method, and that still most usual 

 in Germany, is by means of Romer's plane, which in this case 

 is perforated by twenty-five to thirty little cutting tubes, one 

 above the other, through which the wood is forced by the work- 

 men. The serviceable i)ieces are then separated from the 

 unserviceable pieces by machinery, and placed five hundred 

 together in boxes, which are fastened by rings into large bundles 

 containing several thousand pieces ; a workman can prepare 

 •200,000 pieces in a day. 



Another method is employed in Sweden, only asi)en-\vood 

 being thus used. The round piece of rough wood, 1^ feet long, 

 is softened in water and fixed between the points of a lathe, and 

 the wood is then turned against a blade which peels-ofi' from it 

 a long piece Ih feet broad, of the thickness of a match. This is 

 then cut and split by machines into separate pieces, each the 

 size of a match. The Jonkoping factories alone used up, in 

 1883, 280,000 cubic feet of Russian aspen-wood for this purpose. 



Pieces with a quadrilateral section are prepared after a third 

 method, machines similar to those in use for wood-wool being 

 employed. 



The manufacture of lucifer-matches is steadily consuming 

 more and more wood, and there are factories which for matches 

 and match-boxes consume 200,000 to 300,000 stacked cubic feet 

 of wood annually. Thirty-five stacked cubic feet of wood will 

 yield 2,000,000 lucifer-matches 2 inches long, weighing 3J cwt. 

 The yearly requirements of Europe in this respect are estimated 

 at more than 3,500,000 cubic feet of wood. 



