within the flooring may be adorned with the beautiful art of marquetry and parquetry, wood mosaic work, the wainscoting and the frescoes and ceilings, the stairs and staircases, its carved and ornamental supporting frames and balusters, the charming mantel frames around the hospitable fireplaces, and every article of furniture we see in which wood is a part. So, too, it is with every useful wooden implement and article within and without the house,-the trays, the buckets, the barrels, the tubs, the clothes-pins, the broom-handles, the mops, the ironing and bread boards; and outside the house, the fences, railings and posts-many of these objects entirely unknown to the poor of former generations, uncommon with the rich, and the machinery for making them unknown to all.

It was a noble array of woodwork and machinery with which the nations surprised and greeted the world, at each of its notable international Expositions during the century. Each occasion surpassed its predecessor in the beauty of construction of the machines displayed and efficiency of their work. The names of the members of this array were hard and uncouth, such as the axe, the adze, and the bit, the auger, bark-cutting and grinding machines, blindslat boring, and tenoning, dovetail, mortising, matching and planing, wood splitting, turning, wheeling and planing, wood-bending, rim-boring dowelling, felly-jointing, etc., etc. These names and the clamour of the machines were painful to the ear, but to the thoughtful, they were converted into sweeter music, when reflection brought to mind the hard toil of human hands they had saved, the before unknown comforts and blessings of civilisation they had brought and were bringing to the human race, and the enduring forms of beauty they had produced.

To the invention of wood-working machinery we are also indebted for the awakening of interest in the qualities of wood for a vast number of artistic purposes. It was a revelation, at the great Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, to behold the specimens of different woods from all the forests of the earth, selected and assembled to display their wonderful grain and other qualities, and showing how well nature was storing up for us in its silent shades those growths which were waiting the genius of invention to convert into forms of use and beauty for every home.

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CHAPTER XXII.

FURNITURE.

So far as machinery is concerned for converting wood into furniture, the same has been anticipated in the previous chapter, but much remains to be said about the articles of furniture themselves.

Although from ancient days the most ancient countries provided by hand elaborate and beautiful articles of furniture of many descriptions, yet it has been left for modern advances in machinery and kindred arts to yield that universal supply of convenient and ornamental furniture which now prevails.

The Egyptians used chairs and tables of a more modern form than the Greeks or Romans, who lolled about on couches even at their meals; but the Egyptians did not have the convenient section tables built in sliding sections, which permit the table to be enlarged to accommodate an increased number of guests. And now recently this modern form of table has been improved, by arranging the sections and leaves so that when the sections are slid out the leaves are automatically raised and placed in position, which is done either by lazy-tongs mechanism, or by a series of parallel links: Tables constructed with folding detachable and adjustable legs, tables constructed for special purposes as sewing machines, and typewriting machine tables, by which the machine head may be dropped beneath the table top when

not in use; tables combined with desks wherein the table part may be slid into the desk part when not in use and the sliding cover pulled down to cover and lock from sight both the table and desk; surgical tables, adapted to be raised or lowered at either end or at either side and to be extended; "knock down " tables, adapted to be taken all apart for shipment or storage; tables combined with chairs to be folded down by the side of the chair when not in use; and many other useful forms have been added to the list.

Much ingenuity has been displayed in the construction of desks, to save and economise space. Mention has been made of a combined folding desk and extensible table. Another form is an arrangement of desk drawers, whereby when one drawer is locked or unlocked all the rest are locked

or unlocked automatically. Whatever shape or function anyone desires in a desk may be met, except, perhaps, the performance of the actual work of the occupant.

In the matter of beds, the principal developments have been due to the advancement of wood-working machinery, and the manufacture of iron, steel, and brass. The old-fashioned ponderous bedsteads, put together by heavy screws, have given way to those mortised and tenoned, joined and matched, and by which they can easily be put up and taken down; and to iron and brass bedsteads, which are both ornamental and more healthful. No bed may be without an inexpensive steel spring frame or mattress for the support of the bedding. Folding beds made to economise space, and when folded upright become an ornamental bureau; and invalid bedsteads, designed for shifting the position of the invalid, are among the many modern improvements.

Kitchen Utensils.-A vast amount of drudgery in the kitchen has been relieved by the convenient inventions in labor-saving appliances: coffee and spice mills, can-openers, stationary washtubs, stopper extractors, superseding the old style of handcorkscrews where large numbers of bottles are to be uncorked; refrigerators and provision safes, attaching and lifting devices and convenient culinary dishes and utensils of great variety.

Curtains, shades and screens have been wonderfully improved and their use made widely possible by modern inventions and new adaptation of old methods. Wood, cotton, silk, paper, combined or uncombined with other materials, in many novel ways unknown to our ancestors, have rendered these articles available in thousands of homes where their use was unknown and impossible a century ago. Among the most convenient attachments to shades is the spring roller, invented by Hartshorn of America, in 1864, whereby the shade is automatically rolled upon its stick to raise or lower it.

Window screens for the purpose of excluding flies, mosquitoes, and other insects, while freely admitting the air, are now made extensible and adjustable in different ways to fit different sizes of windows. Curtains and shades are provided with neat and most attractive supporting rods, to which they are attached by brass or wooden rings, and provided with easily manipulated devices to raise and securely hold them in any desired position.

The art of steaming wood and bending it, by iron pattern forms adjustable to the forms desired, as particularly devised in principle by Blanchard in America in 1828-1840, referred to in Wood-working, has produced great changes in the art of furni