TIMBERS. 



15 



cleanest straightest wood is requisite. W e, how- 

 ever, do not believe that pieces of great diameter, 

 bent artificially, can have equal strength and resi- 

 lience as when grown bent — the fibre must in some 

 degree be crippled. We admit that timbers and frames 

 may be built of separate bended pieces of no great 

 thickness, and have all the strength and resilience 

 of natural bend : the strongest and most elastic 

 mode of fonning vessels would be to compose them 

 of different layers of plank over each other in diago- 

 nal fashion, or at an angle 60°, but the labour and 

 inconveniency of these modes would be great. We 

 will not admit that an experiment between the 

 strength of a piece of coarse cross-grained timber, 

 half naturally bent, half cut out of the solid, and 

 that of a piece of clean timber artificially bent, is 

 any proof on the subject. Let us produce a clean 

 natural bend, exactly fitted to its place, without any 

 section of fibre, and make experiment with it. But 

 at any rate, as this plan (bending of timbers) has 

 never been adopted to any extent in our private 

 building-yards, we must doubt its economy, — either 



been softened in hot liquids of 212^ or upwards, and not raised 

 so high as to generate pyrolignous acid ; but we think it must 

 impair the elasticity. 



