SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
| Some Scientific Points Which Arise 
in Cabinet Making." 
By OCTAVIUS CHARLES BEALE, F.R. Hist. S. 
\|N preparing a short paper upon scientific points which arise in 
4] cabinet making, my object has been not at all to’ set forth 
‘advance in the art or.to deal with the general principles which 
guide designers and artisans in a very ancient handicraft, 
but rather to point out here and there matters of interest 
which may concern those who are not engaged in its practice. As to 
advance there is unhappily none to record excepting in methods and 
devices to facilitate production, or to insure durability or reliability. 
Since the “art nouveau” first exercised its malevolent influence upon 
architecture and internal furnishing and decoration there has been a 
pitiful vanishing of a true taste in unison with those canons of comfort 
with elegance which were themselves the slow product of the ages. 
On the other hand, both in Europe and America there has been 
always a minority who perceive and_enjoy the beauty of utility com- 
bined with propriety of form. To these, including pre-eminently the 
producers, is due the preservation of what is called “period styles,” 
meaning adaptations to furniture and fittings of designs taken from 
former centuries which had been proved and admitted to be within the 
aforesaid canons of comfort with elegance: At Grand Rapids in 
Michigan, on Fifth-avenue, New York, in the Curtain-road, or New 
Bond-street, London, in the Avenue de l’Opera, or Montmartre, of 
Paris, wherever the furniture is made or sold, the producers—employers 
and artisans—are glad to see art preserved, but are content to take their 
bread and butter from what they denominate with a smile the 
“primitive taste” that is prevalent. The brothers Adam probably 
derived their chief inspiration from the palace of Diocletian at Spalatro, 
whose internal ornaments possessed delicacy and grace in form rather 
than imposing size and shape. I happen to be a member of council 
of the Royal Society of Arts and Crafts, whose abode is in John-street, 
Adelphi, London, and in whose neighbourhood is preserved some of the 
Adams’ work that is still not without its influence. 
The deplorable “art nouveau” if it did not originate in Germany 
had at least its chief promulgation thence, so that with the defeat of 
Teutonic influence the world may hope for a return to grace in more 
ways than one. 
It is a common belief that the system of veneering is merely a 
practice of deception, but it should hardly need demonstration that 
cheapness is scarcely attainable by sawing or slicing lumber into lamine 
and attaching these by adhesives alternately in longitudinal and trans- 
verse plies. A board 14+ inches thick when sawn into two 3-in. boards 
* Read before the Industrial Section of the Royal Society of New South Wales. 
174 
