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the saw were slackened to a speed of but 40 or 50 times per minute, it would require at least four such bands to carry it through a log as above described.

One machine will cut from 18 to 20 hundred square feet of pine lumber per day, and two of them may be driven by a common tub wheel 7 or 8 feet in diameter, having 6 or 7 feet head of water, with a cog wheel, and trundle head so highly geared, as to give a quick motion to the drums, which should be about four feet in diameter. The machine is so constructed, as to manufacture lumber from 4 to 10 feet in length, and from two to ten inches in width, and of any required thick

ness.

It has been introduced into most of the New-England states, and has given perfect satisfaction. The superiority of the lumber has for three years past been sufficiently proved in this town, (Brunswick, Me.) where there have been annually erected from fifteen to twenty wooden buildings, and for covering the walls of which, this kind has been almost universally used. The principal cause of its superiority to mill sawed lumber, is in the manner in which it is manufactured, viz. in being cut towards the centre of the log, like the radii of a circle; this leaves the lumber feather edged in the exact shape in which it should be, to set close on a building, and is the only way of the grain, in which weather boards of any kind can be manufactured to withstand the influence of the weather, without shrinking, swelling, or warping off the building. Staves and heading, also, must be rived in the same way of the grain in order to pass inspection. The mill sawed lumber, which, I believe, is now universally used in the middle and southern states, and in the West-Indies, for covering the walls of wooden buildings, is partly cut in a wrong direction of the grain, which is the cause of its cracking and warping off, and of the early decay of the buildings by the admission of moisture. That such is the operation, may be inferred by examining a stick of timber which has been exposed to the weather: the cracks, caused by its shrinking, all tend towards the heart or centre, which proves that the shrinking is directly the other way of the grain. It follows, that lumber cut through or across the cracks would not stand the weather in a sound state in any degree to be compared with that which is cut in the same direction with them. have no hesitation in stating, that one half the quantity of lumber, manufactured in this way, will cover and keep tight and sound the same number of buildings for an hundred years, that is now used and consumed in fifty years. Add to

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this the reduction of expense in transportation, and of labor in putting it on, and I think every one must be convinced, that the lumber manufactured in this improved way is entitled to the preference.

In manufacturing staves and heading, a great saving is made in the timber, particularly as to heading, of which at least double the quantity may be obtained by this mode of sawing, to what can be procured in the common method of riving it; nor is the straight-grained or good rift indispensable for the saw, as it is for the purpose of being rived. The heading, when sawed, is in the form it should be, before it is rounded and dowelled together, all the dressing required being merely to smooth off the outsides with a plane. Timber for staves ought to be straight in order to truss, but may be manufactured so exact in size as to require but little labor to fit them for setting up.

Both articles are much lighter for transportation, being nearly divested of superfluous timber, and may be cut to any thickness required for either pipes, hogsheads, or flour barrels.

Description of the TREAD MILL, recently invented in England, and recommended by the Society for the improvement of Prison Discipline.

[We present to our readers a description of a new mode of punishment, which has been introduced into many of the English prisons, and is to be adopted in some of our southern penitentiaries. To illustrate the subject more completely, we have procured a wood engraving, representing the prisoners as at work. The effects of the Tread Mill bave already been salutary, and no doubt is entertained that were they generally introduced into our prisons, both the number and enormity of offences would be diminished. There is nothing which the convict so heartily dreads, as confinement to incessant labor. Our prisons are mostly filled with criminals, originally idle and profane, who, “ too proud to labor, and ashamed to beg," roamed about at midnight to rob and to steal. Hard labor is a punishment to such men appalling-while in the eye of justice it is so mild, than any change in its form calculated to intimidate offenders, must be deemed of essential service to mankind.]

[From an English paper.]

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THE attention of the society for the improvement of Prison discipline has long been devoted to the adoption of some plan for the effectual employment of prisoners. All attempts of this nature have heretofore been attended with considerable difficulty, but it is confidently anticipated that this invention will not only afford suitable employment, but act as a species

of preventive punishment. Although but very recently introduced into practice, the effects of its discipline have in every instance proved highly useful in decreasing the number of commitments; as many prisoners have been known to declare that they would sooner undergo any species of fatigue, or suffer any deprivation, than return to the house of correction, when once released.

[graphic]

The annexed engraving exhibits a party of prisoners in

the act of working one of the tread wheels of the Discipline Mill, invented by Mr. Cubitt, of Ipswich, and recently erect ed at the House of Correction for the county of Surrey, si uated at Brixton. The view is taken from the corner of on

of the ten airing yards of the prison, all of which radiate from the Governor's house in the centre, so that from the window of his room, he commands a complete view into all the yards. A building behind the tread wheel shed is the mill house, containing the necessary machinery for grinding corn and dressing the flour, also rooms for storing it, &c. On the right side of this building, a pipe passes up to the roof, on which is a large cast iron reservoir, capable of holding some thousand gallons of water, for the use of the prison. reservoir is filled by means of forcing pump machinery below, connected with the principal axis which works the machinery of the mill; this axis or shaft passes under the pavement of the several yards, and working by means of universal joints, at every turn communicates with the tread wheel of each class.

This

The wheel, which is represented in the centre of the engraving, is exactly similar to a common water-wheel; the tread-boards upon its circumference are, however, of considerable length, so as to allow sufficient standing room for a row of from ten to twenty persons upon the wheel.* Their weight, the first moving power of the machine, produces the greatest effect when applied upon the circumference of the wheel at or near the level of its axle; to secure, therefore, this mechanical advantage, a screen of boards is fixed up in an inclined position above the wheel, in order to prevent the prisoners from climbing or stepping up higher than the level required. A hand rail is seen fixed upon this screen, by holding which they retain their upright position upon the revolving wheel; the nearest side of which is exposed to view in the plate, in order to represent its cylindrical form much more distinctly than could otherwise have been done. In the original, however, both sides are closely boarded up, so that the prisoners have no access to the interior of the wheel, and all risk of injury whatever is prevented.

By means of steps, the gang of prisoners ascend at one end, and when the requisite number range themselves upon the wheel, it commences its revolution. The effort, then, to every individual, is simply that of ascending an endless flight of steps, their combined weight acting upon every suc

*The wheels erected at the House of Correction at Coldbath-fields, are each capable of containing forty or more prisoners, and the joint force of the prisoners is expended in giving motion to a regulating fly, which, by expanding itself in proportion to the power, will keep any number of men, from twenty to three hundred and twenty, at the same degree of hard labor.

sessive stepping board, precisely as a stream of water upon the float-boards of a water wheel.

During this operation, each prisoner gradually advances from the end at which he mounted towards the opposite end of the wheel, from the last man, taking his turn, descends for rest (see the plate) another prisoner immediately mounting as before to fill up the number required, without stopping the machine. The interval of rest may then be portioned to each man, by regulating the number of those required to work the wheel with the whole number of the gang;-thus if twenty out of twenty-four are obliged to be upon the wheel, it will give to each man intervals of rest amounting to twelve minutes in every hour of labor. Again, by varying the number of men upon the wheel, or the work inside the mill, so as to increase or diminish its velocity, the degree of hard labor or exercise to the prisoner may also be regulated. At Brixton, the diameter of the wheel being 5 feet, and revolving twice in a minute, the space stepped over by each man is 2193 feet, or 731 yards per hour.

To provide regular and suitable employment for prisoners sentenced to hard labor, has been attended with considerable difficulty in many parts of the kingdom; the invention of the Discipline Mill has removed the difficulty, and it is confidently hoped, that as its advantages and effects become better known, the introduction of the mill will be universal in Houses of Correction. As a species of prison labor, it is remarkable for its simplicity. It requires no previous instruction; no taskmaster is necessary to watch over the work of the prisoners, neither are materials or instruments put into their hands that are liable to waste or misapplication, or subject to wear and tear; the internal machinery of the mill, being inaccessible to the prisoners, is placed under the management of skilful and proper persons, one or two at most being required to attend a process which keeps in steady and constant employment from ten to two hundred or more prisoners at one and the same time, which can be suspended and renewed as often as the regulations of the prison render it. necessary, and which imposes equality of labor on every individual employed, no one upon the wheel being able, in the least degree, to avoid his proportion.

The arrangement of the wheels in the yards radiating from the Governor's central residence, places the prisoners thus employed under very good inspection, an object known to be of the utmost importance in prison management. At the Brixton House of Correction, with the exception of the very few confined by the casualties af sickness or debility, all the

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