156 INDUSTRIAL USES OF WOOD. 



The remarkable progress which has been made recently in 

 wood-working machines favours the idea that handwork on rough 

 wood-carving will become in time more and more replaced by 

 machinery. The turning-lathe is already largely used for round 

 articles, whilst machines* have now been invented by which 

 almost any shape may be given to wooden articles. These 

 machines work with a revolving steel blade, which cuts the 

 piece of wood according to the model, much more rapidly and 

 exactly than handwork can ever attain, and with much less waste 

 of material. 



Wooden shoes arc made by hand, of the wood of beech, alder, 

 birch, hornbeam, walnut or poplar, the split pieces being lirst 

 roughly trimmed into shape by a short hatchet and then finished 

 with various curved instruments. Trees 11 feet to 2 A feet in 

 diameter at height of chest are preferred for this purpose. In 

 order to give the shoes a dark colour and preserve them from 

 splitting whilst being gradually dried, they are smoked. The 

 finer kinds are made of poplar or willow- wood and blackened. 

 The Departement of Lozere, in France, alone produces 600,000 

 pairs of wooden shoes yearly. [Wooden heels of women's boots 

 are extensively made in Normandy. — Tr.] 



Wooden soles for leather boots and wooden pattens and clogs 

 are largely made in Saxony by machinery. Shoemakers' lasts 

 are chiefly made of hornbeam-wood, and failing that of beech or 

 sycamore ; there are large factories of these articles in 1 Bohemia 

 and Saxony, in which machinery is used. 



Broomheads are made chiefly of beech and cherry-wood. They 

 are chiefly made at Globenstein in the Erz mountains, at 

 Esslingen, and at Todtenau in the Black Forest, where i'25,000 

 to .i'30,000 worth of broomheads are made yearly. 



Wood is mostly used green for rough wood-carving, as it is 

 then easier to work. 



2. Gini.^tdcls, U"ni(I-Iiistrum<iit.-i, ,(r. 



For gun- and pistol-stocks wavy ' wood of walnut, maple, 

 birch, elm and sycamore is used, chiefly from the lower part of 

 the stem and the roots. Beechwood is also used for inferior 



* Kopierfiais iiiacliiue aiul Kopier lathe. t Maseiholz. 



