these are curiously and often grotesquely mediaval, full of the symbolism and mysticism of primitive humanity. Rude as they are, though, they were preparing the way for something better.

With the advent of printing the block books were superseded and wood engraving became

The Ploughman, from the Dance of Death, by Holbein. a handmaid of the greater art. Illustrations are to be found in many of the books of the early printers. (This is not the place to discuss the question of who was the first to use movable type and the subject has already been treated under the head of PRINTING.) The earliest wood engravings in a printed book with an authentic date appear in the Psalter of Faust and Scheffer published at Mentz in 1457. From Cologne, Mentz, Nuremberg, Ulm, Augsburg, Strasburg and Basel came many printed books illustrated with wood engravings.

The Bible was the book on which the early printers spent most of their energies. Numerous editions were published with illustrations. The most important of these was the famous Cologne Bible which appeared before 1475. Its 109 designs were, after the block books, the first illustrations of Scripture, and they showed more originality and invention than anything that had gone before. Many of the decorative borders of this Bible are in curious contrast to the sacred text. Next to the Bibles in interest in the study of wood engraving are the numerous chronicles and histories. These are records of legends and imaginary events and are illustrated with wood cuts dealing with the lives of the saints and the great happenings in local history. One of the best known of these chronicles is the one pub

In France wood engraving was early identified with printing. Religious books contained many curious and often beautiful illustrations. Those known as the Livres d'Heures' often contained many fine examples of carefully executed blocks in imitation of miniatures. Many of these early wood cuts served simply as an outline for the colorist, who often overlaid them with an entirely different design. The first really effective artistic use of the decorative border may be seen in these 'Livres d'Heures,' and some of them are notably quaint embodiments of scriptural ideas combined with others that are certainly not to be found in the sacred book.

England lagged behind other countries in her art development, and wood engraving was little known there before the publication of Caxton's 'Game and Playe of Chess,' published in 1476, and it is thought that the cuts in this were imported from Germany. In Italy the earliest wood engravings were either importations from Germany or were suggested by German originals. The most noted example of early Italian wood engraving is the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, or Dream of Poliphilo, written by a Venetian monk in 1467 and printed by the famous Aldus in 1499. The Italians developed a method of engraving in chiaroscuro, in imitation of painting, by the use of several blocks, each printed in a different color. The Germans also employed the same methods, but in a much cruder form.

With the advent of Albrecht Dürer wood engraving reached its highest attainment. First of all he was a great designer with a far-reaching and powerful imagination and a mind full of the new learning and spirit of the coming Reformation. He was the first fully to realize

by Burgkmair.

the great possibilities of wood engraving, and by his influence it was raised to the dignity of a fine art. He is known chiefly by four great works. The first of them the 15 large drawings illustrating the Apocalypse of Saint John. Others are the 'Larger Passion of Our Lord,' 12 cuts, The Life of the Virgin,' 20 cuts, and the 'Smaller Passion of Our Lord,' 36 cuts.

Among Dürer's other famous works are the Car and Gate of Triumph' made for the Emperor Maximilian. Another great work celebrating the emperor's fame was Hans Burgkmair's magnificent Triumphal Procession,' etc. A group of wood engravers known as the Little Masters, from the small size of their work, followed Dürer, but their work is of no special significance.

Hans Holbein ranks among the really great artists and wood engraving owes to him a still further advance. Holbein indeed might be well called the father of modern illustration. Among the first books he illustrated were the Utopia' of Sir Thomas Moore and the Biblical translations of Luther. He is best known, however, for his remarkable series of designs known as the Dance of Death, a popular subject of mediæval times. In each of the 41 designs is a scene from common daily life expressed with a grim dramatic power and truth of drawing that are remarkable in a very high degree. Death spares neither the king nor the peasant, the praying nun nor the priest in the pulpit. Much of their success was due to the wonderfully accurate wood engraving of Hans Lützelburger, for in the hands of a less skilful engraver the originals would have lost much of their power. Holbein's designs for the Old Testament were also remarkable in many aspects, but they were more conventional in conception. After Holbein, wood-engraving as an art steadily declined. Its revival, in a modern sense, began with the work of Thomas Bewick in England. To him we owe the great principle of the white line which did away with much of the old drudgery and gave the engravers more freedom in handling. In the old way where black lines crossed the little white lozenges between had to be laboriously cut away, Bewick simply gouged out with his graver a line and by varying the width and number, obtained his gradation of light and shade. He was the first also to use boxwood and the burin; the old wood engravers cut their designs on pear or apple tree boards with a knife. Bewick is best known by the drawings and engravings in his British Quadrupeds and History of British Birds.' He was the founder of the modern British school which held for many years a distinguished place in modern illustrative art. Bewick's pupils, Nesbit and Luke Clennell; Robert Branston, John Thompson, the Dalzels, William Harvey, and W. J. Linton engraved the work of many distinguished English artists. In France and Germany wood engraving has maintained a distinct place in spite of process and some of it has been and still is of a very high order of merit. It is to America, however, that we must look for the greatest achievement in wood engraving. Our artists have carried it to a degree of perfection unparalleled anywhere else in the world. They have taken it out of the domain of a largely mechanical handicraft and given it almost the individuality that belongs to creative art. The first American wood engraver of distinction, Dr. Alexander Anderson, was a follower of Bewick. His work appears in many early American books. Joseph Alexander Adams was another early American wood engraver whose work was even more worthy of study. The notable wood engravings made for the Harper Bible published in 1843 were done under his supervision.

To the great English and American magazines we owe the incentive and the opportunity for the development of the best wood engraving. Even before a way was discovered by which drawings might be photographed on the block, American engravers had begun to show their capacity for interpreting the lines and tones of drawings with exceptional accuracy and originality. In some instances attempts were made to copy the qualities of brush marks and the textures of different mediums such as pencil and charcoal, etc., but this was only a passing phase of an attempt at superior cleverness. W. J. Linton who spent the later years of his life in America was a leader in the effort to make wood engraving more of an individual art, and though he was not always in full sympathy with the tendency toward a greater refinement of line and an effort that seemed to him to be leading away from the legitimate purposes of wood engraving, he was a very great power for good. J. G. Smithwick, long identified with the art department of Harper's, and A. W. Drake, of Scribner's Monthly' and the 'Century,' did their full share in the development of the art. Frederick Juengling, J. P. Davis, Frank French, F. S. King, Wm. B. Closson, Henry Wolf, Thomas Cole, Thomas Johnson, Elbridge Kingsley, Gustav Kruell, William Muller and others are names identified with the highest attainment of American wood engraving. With the advent of process (See PHOTO-ENGRAVING) the demand for wood engraving has greatly diminished and its employment as a reproductive art is constantly decreasing. It is a beautiful art as exemplified by the best practitioners, remarkable for its brilliancy of effect in pure black and white, requiring the most delicate skill in its manual execution and a feeling and invention with respect to the correct interpretation of values and textures of a very high order.

With the passing of the men of to-day who have given wood engraving a place among the fine arts, it is likely that it will cease to be a field for further endeavor. There are no longer incentives for its study, and the time and artistic training necessary for any real accomplishment can be put to much better profit in other directions. Prints by famous engravers are already much sought by collectors, and the future historian of the art will probably end his record with the close of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

More than to any other of the graphic arts are we indebted to wood engraving. It led the way to the invention of printing and has been the means of putting before the world a record of the progress of the greater arts of drawing and painting.

JAMES B. CARRINGTON,

Assistant Editor Scribner's Magazine? Wood-frog. See FROG.

Wood-ibis, a kind of stork (q.v.).

Wood-lark, a European lark (Lullula arborea) closely allied to the sky-lark (q.v.), but distinguished by its smaller size, shorter tail, a distinct light streak over the eyes and ears, and more distinct markings on the breast. It perches upon trees, and is found chiefly in fields near the borders of woods. Its flight is much iess extensive and powerful than that of the sky-lark. The wood-lark often sings during the

night, and on this account has been mistaken for the nightingale. "Its song" is described as "sweet and flute-like, more melancholy than that of the sky-lark, and is generally uttered from the top of some tree or else when the bird is on the wing. It rises to some height before commencing, then ascends, singing, higher and higher, throwing itself from side to side, hovers and floats in the air, and when the song is ended drops with closed wings to the ground again." It bears confinement well, singing sweetly in the cage, and even breeding easily there or in an aviary: hence it is constantly caught and kept. The nest is generally built under bushes. The eggs are five in number, of a dusky color, spotted with deep-brown spots.

Wood-louse, one of the little isopod crustaceans (see ISOPODA) of the family Oniscida, which abound underneath logs and in decaying stumps in the woods, and which, when touched, curl up for protection like armadillos. They are numerous and hardy, the sexes are distinct, and the young are hatched from the eggs in their full form, passing through no metamorphoses. Wood-mouse, the red-backed mouse (q.v.). In England the long-tailed field-mouse (Mus. sylvaticus) is so called.

Wood Nymph, a minor pagan divinity supposed to live in trees and woods. This is the common name, also, of the beautiful lepidopterous insects comprising the genus Eudryas.

Wood Oil, the name given in commerce to a resinous juice which exudes from various trees of eastern Asia. It has a fine aromatic color, and is used for a great variety of purposes; in medicine as a substitute for copaiba balsam; by sailors for paying the seams of a ship instead of tar; by painters as a varnish; also in the making of lithographic ink, etc. It is an excellent preservative of timber against the attacks of white-ants. It is strictly an oleoresin, and is also known as gurjun balsam.

Wood-pewee. See PEWEE.

Wood-pulp. There are three kinds used ground wood, soda-process wood and sulphiteprocess wood; the latter two are not wood in either physical or chemical properties, but cellulose, similar to cotton fibre in appearance and nature. (See PAPER; PAPER INDUSTRY.) The name of wood-pulp is generally understood as designating mechanically ground pulp as distinguished from chemical pulp, or cellulose. In the manufacture of mechanical wood-pulp a block of wood is put against the surface of a rapidly revolving grindstone by hydraulic or other pressure, a stream of water pouring down upon the stone carrying away the disintegrated fibres into a stuff-chest, where they are mixed with a percentage of sulphite or other cellulose, and are then ready to go on the paper machine to be converted into paper. Spruce principally, but also poplar and other soft woods are used in the manufacture of this pulp.

Ground wood was invented in Germany in 1847 by Keller and perfected and patented by Henry Voelter, who constructed a machine which is in general use to-day. Mr. Albrecht Pagenstecher, of New York, bought and controlled the Voelter patent and introduced this industry into the United States in 1867-68, importing two machines, which were set up in Curtisville, Mass.

The introduction of this new process marked a new era in the manufacture of paper. It furnished a cheap and abundant raw material, simplified the former complicated methods of preparing stock for paper machines, and improved the quality of the paper made, besides cheapening the cost of production. Without wood-pulp it would be impossible to supply the demand for paper at the present day.

Wood-pulp was first sold at 8 cents per pound, but finally dropped to less than I cent per pound, and brought the price of newspaper from 14 cents in 1868 down to less than 2 cents per pound at the present time, making the onecent newspaper of to-day possible.

The introduction of ground wood-pulp printing paper in rolls completely revolutionized modern methods of journalism. The absorbent quality of this wood-pulp paper rade the modern rapid printing press practicable, eliminating the allowance for drying, and limiting the printing speed only by the mechanical posibilities of the press, which were in no way dependent, as in the case of rag paper, upon the drying of each sheet. Such an improvement made immediate changes in the making and printing of newspaper, and as soon as the results of this the entire system of news gathering changed new process became commercially practicable, as well. It has since become possible for a paper, with the help of the modern type-setting machine, to get news into the streets within fifteen minutes after its receipt in the printing office.

The output of wood-pulp, which in 1868 was less than one ton per day from the only mill then in existence, has now increased to over 5,000 tons per day in 188 mills, requiring in its manufacture nearly 2,000,000 cords of wood annually, and the use of water-power amounting to about 400.000 horse-power.

At

The introduction of this new process was made under many difficulties, the greatest of which was to overcome the prejudice of papermakers, who believed that rags were the only fit substance to make paper of, and considered wood-pulp as an adulteration or shoddy. present every newspaper is composed largely of ground wood-pulp, with a small percentage of chemical fibre. Many book, wrapping and other papers also contain a large percentage of ground ALBRECHT PAGENSTECHER, wood-pulp. President Manufacturers Paper Company. Wood-quail, or Roulroul. See QUAIL.

Wood-rat, a large rat-like wild mouse of the genus Neotoma, of which two species dwell in the forests of the southern half of the United States. The body is 8 or 9 inches long, and the tail nearly as long. The form resembles that of the white-footed mouse (Microtus), the animal being more slender and squirrel-like than are the true or house rats, from which this may always be distinguished by his hairy tail, softer fur, and much larger ears. The best known species is the Alleghany wood-rat (N. pennsylvanica), which is lead-color above, sprinkled with black hairs, which lightens to yellowish on the flanks and becomes pure white on the abdomen and feet. Consult Stone and Cram. 'American Animals) (New York 1902).

Wood-robin, the wood-thrush (q.v.).
Wood-sorrel. See SORREL.

Wood-thrush, or Wood-robin, the most familiar of North American spotted thrushes (Hylochichla mustelina), famous for the rich four-parted melody of its spring song. It is numerous in warm weather throughout the Eastern States and Canada, inhabiting the wild spaces as well as confidently approaching the house and roadside. Its nest is often built in a village shade-tree, or even in a garden bush, but more frequently among the forking twigs of an apple-tree; and it is to be distinguished from that of the robin by the absence of mud and the presence of many dead leaves, which always form the principal part of its foundation. The eggs are deep blue, smaller and less greenish than those of the robin. It soon becomes unsuspicious of the persons whom it is accustomed to see about the place and who do not disturb it, but is jealous of the attention of other birds, and defends its home with admirable vigor and

Wood-working Machinery includes the various machines employed to reduce the lumber cut in the forests into doors, sashes, moldings, etc., used for industrial purposes. They may be conveniently divided into four general classes-saws, which operate by rending or scission; planers, by which the work is accomplished by a paring action; lathes, in which the wood is turned or pared while being revolved; and grinders or abrading machines, which are generally employed as finishers, and accomplish the work through the medium of sand or emery. Saws are blades of steel with toothed edges and are used to divide metal, and stone, but the principal modern use of the saw is to divide wood. For saws used in metal-working see METAL-WORKING MACHINERY. The use of saws is of very ancient origin, and it is practically impossible to enumerate in detail their adaptations to various mechanical processes.

success.

The song, which is heard most frequently and pleasingly toward sunset, is excelled by that of none of the more familiar Eastern birds either in musical quality or in sentiment. It is low, sweet, evenly modulated, and flute-like, yet has far-carrying power, and when heard at twilight across the fields, or from unseen recesses of the orchard, it brings to the mind a hymn chanted in praise of the serenity of the summer evening. This thrush is bright cinnamon above, brightest on the head; below white, with large rounded black spots forming lines down in front.

Wood-warbler, a book-name for the small and beautiful American birds of the family Mniotiltide (see WARBLER); but the name is without special significance, as these birds are not more characteristic of woodland than of other places; nor than other warblers.

Among uncivilized peoples, saws were made of flakes of flint imbedded in wooden blades and held in place by means of bitumen. Later, among the ancients, bronze saws were used, but all modern saws are made of steel of the finest quality. The saw is practically an exaggeration of the knife, the edge of which, although presenting a smooth appearance to the unaided eye, shows an array of saw teeth when viewed under a micro scope. Saws are of four general types"straight," with flat blades and straight edges. reciprocating in action, and making a plain cut; "circular," with flat circular blades, and cutting at right angles to the motion which is continuous; "barrel," cylindrical in shape, and cutting parallel to the axis; and "band," endless ribbons of steel, toothed on one of the edges, and running over two pulleys, one above the other, with a continuous cutting motion parallel to the axis.

Any of them may be designed for cross-cutting or for ripping purposes. In the cross-cut saws the teeth are designed to cut at right angles to the fibre of the wood, while in the rip-saws the alternate teeth are bent outwardly or "set" so that they make a broader gash than the thickness of the blade and prevent binding or sticking. Saw teeth are made long or short, and pitched to cut one way or both ways, according to the kind and character of the timber to be sawn. The "pitch" of a tooth is the angular position of its point relative to the edge of the

creased rigidity is obtained only by an increase in thickness, which in turn results in the cutting of a wide gash, and a consequent increase in the kerf-waste or saw-dust. Therefore, the use of saws exceeding 72 inches in diameter is not considered economical. In operation, they are run at speeds ranging from 5,000 to 9,000 feet per minute, and are capable of cutting, on the average, about 80,000 superficial feet of lumber per day of 12 hours, as against 6,000 to 10,000 feet, by the straight saws. The wear on circular saws is very great, and the

blade, and it is determined by subtracting the angle of the back edge from that of the front edge of the tooth. The normal pitch is 60°, which is generally applicable to all saws, from those used in the largest sawmills to the smallest hand saws. The blade of the hand saw is broader at one end than at the other, and is provided with a wooden handle attached to the broader end. The largest straight saws are called "pit-saws," and were the earliest employed in the manufacture of lumber. They were operated by two men, one standing over the log and drawing upward, while another standing in the pit below followed with the downward or cutting stroke. The demand for larger quantities of sawmill products, developed the arrangements known as "gate," "gang," and "muley" saws, and later the "circular saws, which were introduced in England about the close of the 18th century. The first patent was granted to Samuel Miller in 1777, but a general announcement of the principle appears to have been made by Brunel about 12 years later.

The circular saw is a disk of the finest steel, with teeth on its edge. At first only those of small diameter were used, such as the buzz-saw of the watchmaker, for minute work, and the ripping-saw of the carpenter shop and the planing mill; but now they are made in diameters ranging from 1 to 84 inches, and the larger sizes are used as the main saws of most of the larger sawmills. In the principal lumbering districts of the United States, they are usually 72 inches in diameter, while those employed on the Pacific coast often run up to a diameter of 8 feet. In design, the diameter of a circular saw is governed by its rigidity or the capacity to maintain a true plane of rotation during the process of cutting. This property decreases as the diameter increases, which is exactly the reverse of what is required. InVOL. 20-36

teeth of the larger lumber saws require to be filed sharp three or four times during a day's work, which rapidly reduces the diameter of the saw, and seriously impairs its efficiency. To obviate this, the larger saws are often constructed with removable teeth which are inserted in slots in the periphery and held in place by wedging or by rivets, and as they wear

Band Saw.

out are easily replaced by new teeth, at a comparatively small expense. Barrel saws are metal cylinders shaped like a straight-sided barrel open at both ends, and with the edge of one end toothed. They are employed in manufacturing the staves for barrels, pails and tubs. Band