706 
CARPENTERS’ WORK. 
axis, introduces another limit to the size of the | loined by labourers, unless they are taken good 
wheels. 
“ Springs were, in all likelihood, first applied 
to carriages with no other view than for the 
accommodation of travellers: they have since 
been found to answer several important ends. 
They convert all percussions into mere increase 
of pressure, thus preserving both the carriage 
and the materials of the roads from the effect of 
blows; and small obstacles are surmounted when 
springs allow the frame and wheels freely to as- 
cend, without sensibly moving the body of the 
carriage from its place. If the whole weight is 
supposed to be concentrated on springs very long, 
extremely flexible, and with the frame and wheels 
wholly devoid of inertia, this paradoxical con- 
clusion will most certainly follow,—that such a 
carriage may be drawn over the roughest road 
without any agitation, and by the smallest in- 
crease of force. It seems probable that springs, 
under some modification of form and material, 
may be applicable with advantage to the heaviest 
waggon.”—See the articles Cart, Draveut, Wac- 
gon, and Wuret-Carrrace. 
CARPENTERS’ WORK. The following obser- 
vations on the measurement and valuation of 
carpenters’ work may be found useful to farmers 
and agriculturists in general. Carpenters’ work 
is done under three distinct contracts,—called 
labour and all materials; labour and nails; and 
labour only. The first is when the workman pro- 
vides the timber for his employer, and does all 
the necessary work upon it, at the same time 
providing the necessary materials, such as glue, 
nails, screws, &c., for putting the work together. 
Under this contract, locks, bolts, hinges, and other 
articles of ironmongery are never inciuded, but 
constitute a separate charge, according to their 
number and value. The second form of contract, 
labour and nails, implies that the employer pro- 
vides all timber and other materials, except nails, 
and that the workman puts the work together 
and fixes it, finding all such nails, spikes, or tre- 
nails as are necessary, but nothing else. The 
third is where everything is provided by the em- 
ployer, and the workman merely furnishes labour. 
The first mode of working is generally resorted 
to for all small jobs, in which it would not be 
worth the employer’s while to purchase his own 
materials, especially as he might procure too 
much or too little, and every carpenter usually 
keeps a small stock of such materials on hand.— 
The second mode, of finding labour and nails, is 
the one constantly resorted to in England for all 
building contracts. It has come into use from 
the very careless manner in which nails are 
treated by workmen, unless they have to pay for 
them. When this is not the case, as many nails 
are frequently spilt among the shavings and 
swept away as would complete the job, while in 
labour and nail work, a spare nail is seldom seen 
upon the ground. Nails are likewise an article 
care of. 
All carpenters’ work, whether done by one or 
other of the above contracts, is measured and 
charged for by superficial measure, taken in what 
are called squares, that is, 100 superficial feet, or 
else by the single foot. Thus all naked floors, 
roofs, or partitions are computed in squares and 
+ do parts of a square, being superficial feet, and 
they are said to be worth a certain price per 
square, according to the distance apart of the 
joists, rafters, or studs, and whether they are 
morticed into, or simply notched down upon 
bridging joists, girders, &c. Ifa carpenter covers 
a naked partition with weather boarding, or a 
naked floor with boards or battens, still the mea- 
sure and value is determined by the number of 
squares. A square of work is therefore worth a 
certain price for labour only; but if nails are also | 
found, then the value of as many nails as ought | 
to be used in a square of such work must be | 
added. When the work is small and neat, it is 
taken in superficial feet instead of squares; while 
skirtings and many other things belonging more 
to joinery than carpentry, are measured and 
valued by lineal feet. It will thus be seen that 
the measurement of carpenters’ work for labour 
only, or labour and nails, is very simple; but | 
when all materials have been found, the above | 
process must be gone through, and the price of 
the materials must be added, which increases the | 
complication of the process, because not only the 
general surface, but each individual piece of tim- 
ber that occurs in the work has to be measured 
and set down in three dimensions; viz., length, 
breadth, and thickness, to determine its cubic 
measure. The kind of timber must also be spe- 
cified in the measuring book, provided the tim- 
bers used are of various kinds, with different 
prices per foot cube. The same ruling is used for 
the carpenters’ measuring book as for the brick- 
layers’, and the columns are appropriated to the 
same purposes, viz., the first on left for coeffi- 
cients, when pieces of the same size are often 
repeated, as in joists and rafters. The second 
column for the dimensions as taken; but these 
are always set down in three, instead of two lines 
or quantities, the breadth occupying the top line, 
the width the second, and the length the third; 
because to cube timber the breadth and width 
are multiplied into each other, and their product 
into the length. The third column is therefore 
left blank for receiving the cubic quantities, when | 
afterwards computed at home, and this quantity | 
must of course be multiplied by the coefficient, 
when one exists. The fourth column is filled up 
with the kind and quality of timber, as oak, pine, 
&c., and the form in which it exists in the work, 
as joists, lintels, rafters, &c. This dimension 
book not only requires to be cast up, but to be 
afterwards abstracted, in order that all the same 
quality of timber (or work if required) may be 
of ready sale; and are therefore frequently pur- | got together, when the whole quantities can be 
