Sept. 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



DEVELOPMENT OP COLONIAL RESOURCES. 73 



requisite thickness, it is, if wanted for immediate use, placed in the 

 seasoning house. This is a steam-tight building, constructed of riveted 

 iron plates, in the same manner as the boiler of an engine. It is fitted 

 with steam-pipes, and it is by the action of the steam that the wood is 

 seasoned, — a few hours being sufficient to produce the same effect by 

 this process as would require months in the ordinary way. When 

 seasoned, it is handed over to the department by which it is intended to 

 be worked up. 



There are separate buildings, each having its necessary staff of work- 

 men, for the manufacture of each description of article. One set of men 

 make nothing but bedsteads, another only chests of drawers, a third 

 packing cases, a fourth doors, a fifth sashes, a sixth chairs, and so on. 

 The wood for each kind of article is sawn out by the machinery, and 

 stacked separately. It may give some idea of the amount of work pro- 

 duced in this establishment by this division of labour, when we state 

 that a thousand bedsteads are undergoing the process of manufacture at 

 once ; that a single boy, with a morticing machine, is capable of mor- 

 ticing one hundred doors in a day ; that, on an average, four hundred 

 pairs of sashes are sent out, glazed and ready for use, every week ; that 

 the wood consumed annually in making soap, candle, wine, and other 

 cases, alone, amounts to four million feet, and that the value of this 

 single article of production is over 6,OO0Z. annually. 



The rapidity and ease with which the circular saws, working on rack 

 benches, reduce heavy pieces of timber into boards is something startling. 

 A log, say fifteen inches square, and fifty or sixty feet long, is reduced 

 into strips as easily, and almost as rapidly, as a lady could cut a sheet of 

 paper with a pair of scissors. These rack-benches are among the most 

 expensive machines used. They were made on the premises, at a cost of 

 about 1,500Z. each. The men attending them have little else to do than 

 look on, and supply the machine with fresh timber as often as required. 



Another very ingenious tool, and one peculiar to this establishment 

 — the invention of Mr. Nicolle, and made on the premises — is a machine 

 for cutting laths. It is capable of producing ten thousand laths per day, 

 and is said to be superior to anything of the kind ever before invented. 

 To enumerate all the purposes to which steam machinery is here 

 applied would be tedious. In addition to the large sawing machines there 

 are others for planing, for cross-cut sawing, for grooving and tongneing, 

 for morticing, for cutting tenons, for moulding, and for various other 

 purposes. 



The consumption of timber amounts to 80,000 feet of cedar and 

 40,000 of pine weekly. No imported wood is used unless, from some 

 unusual circumstance, colonial cannot be procured, — as the latter is 

 deemed preferable on many accounts. The stock on hand usually amounts 

 to about 2,000,000 feet. The consumption in 1862 was upwards of 

 4,000,000 feet, and is fast increasing. A considerable export trade is 

 rapidly springing up to Victoria, Queensland, and other places. The 



vol. v. K 



