FURNITURE AND FURNISHINGS 



article of furniture was purely an American invention, 

 and has never come into general use in Europe. Chif- 

 foniers, folding-beds, and refrigerators are also Amer- 

 ican inventions, and the comfortable "hammock 

 chairs" are simply adaptations of the primitive ham- 

 mocks used by the South American aborigines and 

 apparently unknown to civilization until the advent 

 of the Spaniards. 



The use of machinery has revolutionized furniture- 

 making quite as completely as it has any other single 

 field of industry. The past half -century has seen cheap, 

 substantial, and really very ornamental furniture placed 

 within the reach even of the poorer classes, this being 

 due entirely to the use of machinery. The most 

 expensive furniture is still made in practically the same 

 manner as it was two centuries ago, but furniture 

 quite as useful, and frequently indistinguishable from 

 it by the ordinary observer, is now turned out entirely 

 by machinery, no handwork of any importance being 

 employed at any stage of the process. Some of this 

 machinery, such as saws, planing-machines, and 

 boring-machines, are too familiar to need further 

 description; certain less familiar mechanisms will be 

 referred to more at length presently. 



THE PASSING OF HAND-CARVING 



For many centuries, even during the time of the 

 Dark Ages, the carving of wood held a position as a 

 fine art in Western Europe. For certain purposes 

 such carving took the place of sculpture in stone and 



[217] 



