was of unequal thickness in the different parts, the wood was mangled by the operation of cutting, and the finest pieces, which, as has been said, are cross-grained, or have the fibres across their thickness, were always in danger of being broken. It had been found that veneers, laid upon good bodies of timber, whether of the more coarse mahoganies or of any other kind, were better, in point both of beauty and of standing without warping, than solid timber; but the cutting of the veneers by the hand was very laborious, and wasted the timber, so that, though the plan was a good one, it was expensive. When the harder and more unmanageable species of fancy woods came to be used, the difficulty and expense were further increased; and though more beauty and variety were imparted to cabinet furniture, they were imparted at a corresponding increase of expense. Nor was it till the invention of machinery for the cutting of wood into veneers, by Mr. Brunel, that we had the full advantage of the beautiful art of veneering. The machinery used for this purpose consists of circular saws, driven by mechanical power; and they have so diminished the price of cutting veneers that the saving is immense. The quantity of veneer that can, by means of these machines, be sawed out of a given quantity of timber, is astonishing. Those who are reckoned respectable cabinetmakers do not, in general, wish to have more than eight or nine thicknesses out of the inch; but those who manufacture furniture for occasional sale, and are, in consequence, indifferent as to the quality of the timber, and the durability of their work, often have the inch cut into fifteen or sixteen thicknesses. Veneering in fancy woods has sometimes been compared to gilding and plating; but the process does not gain by the comparison, as the covering of one wood with another is a much nearer approach to solidity than the covering of one metal with another. While the cabinet article is kept in such a state that the glue is not dissolved, the covering of beautiful wood does not wear out; and thus, with a vast saving in the more costly material, there is the same durability as if nothing but that material had been used for the whole. There is another advantage in the use of fancy woods on the surface--the body of the article upon which the fancy wood is laid can be much better put together than if it had formed the external part of the article. Where that is the case, dovetails, or mortises, cannot be wedged without an

external seam; but, in veneering, the body of the article can be put together with every degree of care and strength and the veneer will hide the whole.-Mahogany is of universal use for furniture, from the common tables of a village inn to the splendid cabinets of a regal palace. But the general adoption of this wood renders a nice selection necessary for those articles which are costly and fashionable. The extensive manufacture of piano-fortes has much increased the demand for mahogany. Spanish mahogany is decidedly the most beautiful; but occasionally, yet not very often, the Honduras wood is of singular brilliancy; and it is then eagerly sought for, to be employed in the most expensive cabinet work. A short time ago, Messrs. Broadwood, distinguished English makers of piano-fortes, gave the enormous sum of £3000 for three logs of mahogany. These logs, the produce of one tree, were each about fifteen feet long, and thirty-eight inches wide. They were cut into veneers of eight to an inch. A new species of mahogany has been lately introduced in cabinet work, which is commonly called Gambia. As its name imports, it comes from Africa. It is of a beautiful color, but does not retain it so long as the Spanish and Honduras woods.-The wood most in use for cabinet work, next to mahogany, is rose-wood. The name of this species of wood is derived from its fragrance; and it has long been known to the cabinet-makers of England and France. It was first introduced, it is said, from the isle of Cyprus; though the great supply now comes from Brazil. The width of the logs imported into England averages twenty-two inches, so that it must be the produce of a considerable tree. The more distinct the darker parts are from the purple-red, which forms the ground, the more is the wood esteemed. It is ordinarily cut into veneers of nine to an inch, and is employed, in this way, for all the larger furniture, such as tables, but solid for the legs of chairs, tables and cabinets.-King-wood is generally used for small cabinet works, and for borderings to those which are larger. It is extremely hard. The tree which produces it is small, as the sticks are seldom brought to England more than five inches wide and four feet long. Its color is of a chocolate ground, with black veins, sometimes running into the finest lines, and at others more spread over the ground, as in rosewood. The botanical name of the tree which produces this wood is not known.

It comes from Brazil. And here we should remark the exceedingly imperfect state of our knowledge with regard to the species of trees which produce the fancy woods, so extensively used in cabinet work. The attention of botanists who have described the productions of South America and Australasia, from which these fine woods come, has not been directed to this point; and the commercial dealers in these woods have paid no regard to it.-Beef-wood, principally used in forming borders to work, in which the larger woods are employed, is intensely hard and extremely heavy. Its color is a pale red, not so clouded as mahogany. The timber arrives in England in logs of about nine feet long, by thirteen or fourteen inches wide. The tree which produces it is not known in botanical description, but it is a native of New Holland.-Tulip-wood would appear to be the produce of a tree little exceeding the character of a shrub; for it arrives in sticks of about five inches diameter, seldom more than four feet in length. It is very hard, and of a clouded red and yellow color. Its principal use is in bordering, though it is employed in smaller articles, such as caddies and ladies' worktables.-Zebra-wood is the produce of a large tree, and is received in logs of two feet wide. It is a cheap wood, and is employed in large work, as tables. The color is somewhat gaudy, being composed of brown on a white ground, clouded with black, and each strongly contrasted, as its name imports, derived, as it is, from the colors of the zebra.-Coromandelwood is used in large works, like zebra and rose-wood. It is inferior to rosewood in the brilliancy and division of its colors, having a dingy ground, and sometimes running into white streaks. The tree which produces it is of a large size. -Satin-wood is well known for its brilliant yellow color, with delicate glowing shades. It is now not much used in cabinet work. The timber arrives in logs two feet wide, and seven or eight feet long.-Sandal-wood is of a lightbrown color, with brilliant waves of a golden hue, not unlike the finest Honduras mahogany. It is about the same size as satin-wood.-Amboyna-wood is now very much used in cabinet work. It is of various colors, and the shades are generally small. It arrives in logs of two feet wide. -Snake-wood is extremely hard, of a deep-red color, with black shades. It is principally used for bordering and small work.-Hare-wood something resembles

satin-wood in the arrangement of its waves, but its color is different, being of a light-brown ground.-Botany bay oak forms very beautiful furniture. The ground is a uniform brown, with large dark blotches.-Ebony (q. v.) is also much used. Of the several cabinet-makers' woods bearing this name, there are the African cliff ebony, which is black, with a white spot; and the spotted ebony, a very beautiful wood, and extremely hard (more so than the common ebony), of which the ground is black, with brown and yellow spots.-Acker-wood is the produce of a large tree, and is of a cinnamon color.-Canary-wood is of a golden yellow.-Purple-wood, which has been lately introduced, is of a purple color, without veins. This appears to be the produce of a thorn of tropical countries, being only four inches wide. These three woods have been little used in furniture, but have been lately employed in mosaic floors.-Bird's-eye maple (its appearance is described in its name), which has also been so employed, is a narrow and long wood.—Calamander-wood. There is a very beautiful wood of this name growing in the island of Ceylon. The wood is very hard and heavy, and of singularly remarkable variety and admixture of colors. It is very difficult to describe this; nay, impossible to convey to those who have not seen it an idea of the manner in which the shades run into one another. The most prevailing of these is a fine chocolate color, now deepening almost into absolute black, now fading into a medium between fawn and cream colors. In some places, however, the latter tint is placed in more striking, though never quite in sudden, contrast with the richest shades of the brown. The variations are sometimes displayed in clustering mottles, sometimes in the most graceful streaks. There is not, however, any thing in the least gaudy or fantastic in the general result. It certainly arrests the eye, but it is from the rich beauty of the intermingled colors, not from any undue showiness. This wood takes a very high polish. It is wrought into chairs, and particularly into tables, and even large folding-doors have been made of it.-Partridge, leopard and porcupine woods are very rarely used. Their names are derived from a supposed similarity of their colors to those of the animals whose denominations they bear.

WOOD, Anthony, an eminent English antiquary and biographer, born at Oxford, in 1632, entered of Merton college, Oxford, in 1647. Having graduated M. A., he

set himeslf to transcribe the monumental inscriptions and arms of the parishes of Oxford, and, in 1660, obtained permission to consult the registers and other records of the university in the Schools' Tower. These researches, added to others in the Tower of London and the Cotton library, produced the materials for his History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford. The copy of this work, which he had compiled with greater industry than skill, was purchased of him by the university for 100 pounds. It was written in English; but as it was thought proper that it should appear in Latin for the information of foreigners, it was translated into that language, under the inspection of doctor Fell, and published at the Oxford press, under the title of Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis (2 vols., folio). Of this version he often complained, as exhibiting various mistakes and omissions. In 1691 appeared his more popular and important work, Athena Oxonienses, or an account, in English, of almost all the writers educated at Oxford, and many of those at the university of Cambridge. A prosecution was soon after instituted against him in the vice-chancellor's court, for an imputation, in this work, affecting the character of the deceased earl of Clarendon; and he was sentenced to expulsion until he should formally recant it. His work affords valuable materials for biography. He died in 1695, and left his books and papers to the university of Oxford. A third edition of his Athena Oxonienses, corrected from the author's manuscripts, and continued, appeared under the superintendence of doctor Bliss (1813 -1817, 3 vols., 4to.).

WOOD, Robert, an accomplished scholar and statesman, was born at Riverstown, in the county of Meath, in 1716. In 1751, he made the tour of Greece, Egypt and Palestine, in company with Bouverie and Dawkins, and, at his return, published a splendid work in folio, entitled the Ruins of Palmyra, otherwise Tadmor in the Desert (fol., 1753), being an account of the ancient and present state of that place, with fifty-seven elegant engravings; republished in Paris in 1819 (4to.). This was followed by a similar Description of the Ruins of Balbec, with forty-six plates (1757). In 1759, he was appointed under secretary of state by the earl of Chatham, at which time he was preparing for the press his Essay on the Life and Writings of Homer, which did not appear until after his death, which took place at Putney, in 1771. This work

has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish and German; the latter by Heyne, with a preliminary essay.

WOOD, Matthew, is a native of Tiverton, where he was born in 1770. His parents were engaged in business there, and brought up a numerous family with credit, and well qualified to seek their fortunes in the world. Matthew travelled for some years for the house of an eminent druggist, and afterwards engaged in the same line of business. He soon became common-council man, and, in 1808, alderman, of London. In 1809-10, he was made sheriff. In 1817, he became lord mayor, and, on the expiration of his office, received the extraordinary compliment of being elected a second time. In the mean time, he was returned to parliament, after a severe contest, and, in a subsequent struggle, was again placed in the same situation. Here he exerted himself to procure an inquiry into the state of the metropolitan prisons, and distinguished himself by his activity in procuring the abolition of the blood-money rewards. (See Informer.) He met the queen at St. Omer, and accompanied her to England, and, in her carriage, into London, where she made his house her temporary residence. During the arduous conflict which ensued between the court and the ministry, and the queen and the people of England, Alderman Wood was the active adherent of her majesty. After her death, he attended her remains to Brunswick. Alderman Wood has realized a large fortune in the hop trade, and in the working of some copper mines in Cornwall. In the performance of his parliamentary and other public duties, he has shown himself indefatigable and honorable. His popularity had, however, so far declined, that, in 1826, he was the last on the poll of the members returned for the city. In parliament, he has been the advocate of reform and retrenchment.

WOOD ENGRAVING. Some account of this may be found in the article Engraving. We add here, that one of the chief advantages of wood-cuts is, that they may be printed by the same process as common letter-press. In a copper-plate, as may be known to most of our readers, the parts which are intended to leave an impression upon the paper are cut into copper, so that, after the ink is spread over the engraving, it has to be rubbed from all the prominent or uncut portion of the surface, in order that it may remain only in these hollows. Several disadvantages result from this. In the first place, the plate is very soon worn, or the

fineness of the lines impaired, by this continual abrasion.* Secondly, from the method of inking being so different from that which is used in printing letter-press, where the parts of the type that make the impression are the prominences and not the hollows, and the ink, therefore, is allowed to remain where it naturally adheres on being applied by the ball or roller, the copper-plate engraving must always be printed by itself, and generally on a separate page from the letter-press. The only way of giving both on the same page, is to subject the paper to two successive impressions, which, besides the inconvenience of the operation, almost always produces an unpleasant effect from the difference of color in the two inkings, and the difficulty of adjustment. A woodcut has none of these disadvantages. As the impression is to be made by the prominent parts of the wood, these, which receive the ink directly from the roller, are allowed to retain it, just as in the case of ordinary types; and there is, therefore, nothing of that process of rubbing at every impression, which so soon wears out a copper-plate. The consequence is, that while rarely more than two thousand impressions can be taken from a copper engraving before it requires to be retouched, a wood-cut will yield, perhaps, fifty thousand. Then the latter, from the manner in which it is to be inked, admits of being set up, if necessary, just like any of the other types, in the midst of a common page, and so of being printed both in the most convenient place, and without any separate process. The block must, of course, for this purpose, be made very exactly of the same thickness or depth as the other types, along with which it is placed. In the early days of wood engraving, the pear-tree or apple-tree was the wood most commonly used; but boxwood is now generally employed, as being of a still firmer and more compact grain. The surface of the block is first shaved very even and smooth; and upon this the figure is then traced in penciling, as it is to be finally cut out in relief.

WOODBINE. (See Honeysuckle.) WOODCHUCK. (See Marmot.) WOODCOCK (Scolopax minor). This bird is universally known to our sportsmen. On its first arrival in the spring, it keeps to the woods and thickets during the daytime, but resorts to springs and open watery places, for feeding, at the approach of evening. About the beginning of July, when their favorite springs and

inland watery recesses are dried up, these birds descend to the marshy shores of our larger rivers, and afford fine shooting. This sport is eagerly followed, though still more laborious and fatiguing than snipe shooting. The woodcock is properly a nocturnal bird, seldom stirring till after sunset in search of its accustomed food, which consists of various larvæ and aquatic worms. In the evening, as well as early in the morning, particularly in the spring, it often rises to a considerable height in the air, and hovers round in a wild, irregular manner, making a sort of murmuring noise. The flesh is highly esteemed. The nest is placed on the ground in a retired part of the woods, and the eggs are of a dun clay color, thickly marked with brown spots. It extends its migrations to the St. Lawrence, and remains in the Middle States till late in the autumn. The forehead and all the lower parts are reddish tawny; the upper parts mottled with black and light brown. The European woodcock is a much larger species.

WOODHOUSELEE. (See Tytler.)

WOODPECKER (picus). These birds have a stout angular bill, wedge-shaped · at the apex, straight, or, in a few species, slightly arcuate, and furnished with feathers at the base. The tongue is long, worm-like, capable of being protruded beyond the beak, and terminates in a horny and very acute point, barbed with reflexed spines, like an arrow, and serves to transfix insects. This operation is accomplished by the peculiar form of the os hyoides, the two branches of which are prolonged around the skull, passing over the summit, till they reach the base of the bill, and a corresponding muscular arrangement. The tarsi are short and naked; the toes, two before and two behind, long-armed, with strong, compressed, hooked nails, every way adapted for clinging. The tail, besides, serves the purpose of a third member, having the shafts of the feathers stiff, elastic and projecting, acting the part of a bracket in supporting the bird, when thrown inward against the trunk of a tree. The species are numerous, and are found in all parts of the globe; at least in all that are covered by forests. They cling to the trunks of trees, holding their bodies upright, and strike holes in the bark, in search of insects which take shelter in the crevices. They nestle in holes of trees, which they excavate by repeated blows with their beaks. Some occasionally feed on fruits and berries. Their plumage is very much varied, composed of the most striking

colors, blue only excepted. We have numerous and very beautiful species in the U. States, such as the ivory-billed, pileated, hairy, downy, Carolina, redheaded, red-cockaded, and yellow-bellied. The golden-winged woodpecker, or flicker, so familiarly known in most parts of the U. States, is remarkable for having the bill slightly arcuated. In Canada and the extreme northern parts of the U. States, a species is found having but three toes; and others exist, in the East Indies, having the fourth toe very short, or merely rudimentary.

WOODS, LAKE OF THE. (See Lake of the Woods.)

WOODSTOCK; a borough and markettown of England, in Oxfordshire. Woodstock has two manufactures, those of polished steel and gloves; the former much decayed: the latter was begun here about seventy years ago. Population in 1831, 1320. Previous to the passage of the reform act in 1832, it returned two members to parliament, who were chosen by about 400 voters. By that act it was deprived of one of its members.

WOOL; a term used very indefinitely. It is applied both to the fine hair of animals, as sheep, rabbits, some species of goats, the vicugna, &c., and to fine vegetable fibres, as cotton (the German name of which is tree-wool-Baumwolle). In this article, however, we refer only to the wool of sheep, a substance which, from the earliest periods, has been of primary importance, because it has always formed the principal material of the clothing of mankind in most temperate regions. What Columella says (lib. viii, cap. 2), still remains true: Post majores quadrupedes, ovilli pecoris secunda ratio est, quæ prima sit, si ad utilitatem magnitudinem referas. Nam id præcipue nos contra frigoris violentiam protegit; corporibusque nostris liberaliora præbet velamina. We have given, in the articles Sheep, and Sheep-Raising, some historical and other information on this interesting subject, and must refer the reader to that article, as forming, in some degree, one whole with the following. On those parts of the sheep where wool does not grow, it has hair, like other animals, as on the nose and the lower part of the legs. Those parts of the skin which cover flesh, always produce wool in the healthy state of the animal. The fibres of the wool are either straight and lank, or crooked and interlaced. The division into locks, formed by the coherence of the single fibres, varies in every species of wool, and forms what is called the staple. The body of wool,

which is shorn in connexion from one animal, is called a fleece. If we imagine a fleece spread out, the wool of the head, the legs, the belly, and the tail (which is the worst), form the exterior parts or margin. The wool of the same animal differs much on the various parts of the body: that on the back and the sides is the best. The great difference in the wool of different sheep depends, in general, upon their descent, the crossing of breeds, climate, food, and manner of living, and among the, individual animals of the same breed, upon age, sex, and outward circumstances. The wool is, therefore, divided into coarse wool, which is long, either straight or irregularly curled, and fine wool, which is regularly curled. There are again many subdivisions. In Spain, the sheep are sorted before the washing, then shorn, and at last the wool is washed. It comes into the market divided into four sorts: refina, prima, segonda and tercera. The Saxon wool is also divided into four sorts: electoral, prima, secunda and tertia. To sort the wool requires much practice, in order to discern minute differences that are quite inappreciable by common observers. Frequently eight or ten different kinds are found in a single fleece; and if the best wool of one fleece be not equal to the finest sort, it is put with a second, third or fourth, or a still lower class, of an equal degree of fineness with it. The best English short native fleeces, such as the fine Norfolk and south down, are generally divided by the wool-sorter into the following kinds, all varying in fineness, viz. 1. prime; 2. choice; 3. super; 4. head; 5. downrights; 6. seconds; 7. fine abb; 8. coarse abb; 9. livery; 10. short, coarse, or breech wool. The relative value of each varies according to the greater demand for coarse, fine or middle cloths. Fine Merino wool, upon healthy and fullgrown animals, grows within a year from one to two inches, generally from one and a half to two inches. As the fineness of the wool is a very important quality (though softness is equally so), "woolmeasures" have been invented. One of these, that of A. C. F. Köhler and K Hoffmann, two German gentlemen, measures a hundred of the fibres of the wool at once: they are put into a cavity in the middle of the instrument, and pressed by a peculiar apparatus, with a weight of about three Leipsic pounds, till the maximum reaction of their elasticity is reached, and the result is indicated, sixty times magnified, on a semicircle divided into degrees. Mr. Köhler has written a pam