For window weights he substitutes a cheap material manufactured out of various kinds of refuse; and suggests an improvement in the mode of hanging windows whereby one weight can be made to answer the same purposes as two applied in the usual way. R. Adams nas a patent anti-accident reversible and sliding window, for cleaning, ventilation, &c., whereby the outside of the sashes can be safely revolved, or reclined into the room for cleaning, &c., thus removing all danger to the cleaner. Meakin has a new patent standard sliding sash, for cleaning. For sash lines, see par. 2260.

21656. The French casement window, or sash door as it is called when it opens down to the ground, is a feature commonly introduced even in English town houses. Its most ordinary form for small apertures is that of two leaves opening inwards or outwards, meeting in the centre of the opening; one leaf being secured to the frame by a bolt at top and bottom, and the other, when closed, is fastened to the first by a handle, fixed on the second leaf and turning over a staple fixed on the first. When the casement is high, this second leaf may require a bolt also at top and bottom to prevent the wind bending it (when inwards), and so admitting cold air and wet. When placed towards an exposed quarter

and subject to driving rains, it becomes necessary to take extra precautions to prevent the wet being blown through the joints at the bottom and the sides. To effect this object, the s'iles, rails, and frames are beaded and sunk in various manners; some are shown in figs. 780a. and 780b., sills and bottom rails. For the latter, a water bar is now much used. 2165c. The next improvement is perhaps that of affixing to the leaf which is first opened an upright bar, which turns, and on being closed, fits against the other leaf, and by a hook

are those in most general use. There is also a late invention for forming the bolt into a plate, and setting it in a groove in the edge of the meeting stile, a corresponding groove being formed in the other stile to receive its half of the plate when moved forward by the handle in closing the casement. This, at the same time, forms a weather bar. pur. 2259.)

(See

2165e. The fig. 780a, is a section of an ordinary arrangement in France for a casement. A is the plan, taken across the middle of the height, near the handle; and B the plan of the hooks at top and bottom of the rod, working into a staple fixed in the head and in the sill, with the movement of the rod by its handle. The round and hollow joint in the middle of the casement necessitates the two leaves being closed together and pressed into the frame when shutting the leaves, thus securing all the joints from admitting air or water.

2165f. Fig. 780d. is a plan of the elaborate but usual French casement, as lately put up to the stone-fronted houses in the Rue de la Victoire, at Paris. It is given by Daly, in the Revue Generale de l'Architecture of 1858. A shows the casements when shut; B the shutters closed in the boxings; and b b the shutters when opened out. C the persiennes or outside blinds shut against the stone reveals; the ordinary mode is for them to shut on the face of the wall, which spoils the architecture of the façade; ce the same when closed; D the espagnolette bolt; E the outside architrave; and F the inside architrave.

GROUNDS.

2166. Grounds are formed of pieces of wood forming skeleton frames, and attached to walls, around windows, doors, or other openings, for the facility of fixing architraves or other mouldings upon them. For doorways the front and back grounds were connected by a third, specified as dovetailed backing. They are disused in common work, the grounds being the wrought woodwork carrying the mouldings, forming a single or double faced architrave, and having the jamb space filled by a single or a double rebated and beaded jamb lining. The grounds served as screeds for the plastering, for which purpose the edge was chamfered, rebated, or grooved. Grounds or narrow grounds were those to which the bases and surbases of rooms were fastened; slips of wood now receive the skirtings of rooms. All these appliances were secured to wood bricks, which themselves have given way to plugs or wedges. Wright and Co's patent improvea fixing blocks for linings to walls, and floors, are substitutes for wood as a fixing. They take and retain nails equal to wood; they do not shrink, split, or decay, or become loose; whilst the crushing weight is fully equal to good average brick or stone. They are built into reveals as bricks, without destroying the bond. When required for skirtings, for boarding, and such like, the brick is made inch wider, offering for the plastering a better key than that obtained when using the wood ground. They are useful also in other cases. In all cases the grounds ought to be fixed vertical on the face and edge, and be fixed firm and solid in every part; for otherwise the inside work cannot be well finished, as in plastered rooms the plaster is worked to them.

2167. In fixing window grounds, the sash-frame must be first carefully placed so as to stand perfectly vertical; and then the face of the ground must stand quite parallel to the face of the sash-frame, and project about three quarters of an inch from the face of the naked brickwork, so as to leave a sufficient space for the thickness of the plaster. The edge of the ground should be in the same plane with the edge of the sash-frame, or, as the workmen term it, "out of winding." The edge of the architrave, when finished. in ordinary cases, will stand about three-eighths of an inch within the inner edge of the sash-frame, so that a perpendicular line down to the middle of the grounds would stand exactly opposite to a perpendicular line down to the middle of the sash-frame.

FLOORS OR FLOOR BOARDS.

2168. In the laying of floors, the first care to be taken is that they be perfectly level, which, owing to the nature of the materials whereof they are constructed, is a difficult task. The chief sorts of floors may be divided into those which are folded, that is, when the boards are laid in divisions, whose side vertical joints are not continuous, but in bays of three, four. five, or more boards in a bay or fold; and those which are straight joint, in which the sile joints of the boards are continuous throughout their direction.

As soon as the windows are fixed, the floors of a building may be laid. The boards are to be placed on their best face, and put to season till the sap is quite exhausted, when they may be planed smooth, and their edges shot and squared. The opposite edges are brought to a breadth by drawing a line on the face parallel to the other edge with a flooring guage, after which the common guage is used to bring them to a thickness, and they are rebated down on the back to the lines drawn by the guage.

2169. The next operation is, to try the joints, which, if not level, must be brought so, either by furring up if they be hollow, or by adzing down if they are convex, the former being more generally the case.

2170. The boards used for flooring are battens, or deals of greater breadth, whose qualities are of three sorts. The best is that free from knots, shakes, sapwood, or cross-grained stuff, selected so as to match well with one another. The second best is free of shakes and sapwood, and in it only small sound knots are permitted. The third, or most common sort, are such as are left after taking away the best and second best.

2171. The joints of flooring-boards are either quite square, ploughed and tongued, rebated, or dowelled; and in fixing them they are nailed on one or both edges, when the joints are plain and square without dowels. When they are dowelled, they may be nailed on one or both sides; but in the best dowelled work the outer edge only is nailed, by driving the brad through the edge of the board obliquely, without piercing its surface. which, when the work is cleaned off, appears without blemish.

2172. In laying the floor-boards, they are sometimes laid one after the other, or one is first laid, then the fourth, at an interval of something less than the united breadth of the second and third together. The two intermediate boards are then laid in their places with one edge on the edge of the first board and the other upon that of the fourth board, the two middle edges resting against each other, rising to a ridge at the joint. In order to force these boards into their places, two or three workmen jump upon the ridge till they have brought the under sides of the boards close to the joints; they are then fixed in their places with brads. This method is that first mentioned under this head, and in it the boards are said to be folded. We have here mentioned only two boards, but four boards are most commonly folded at a time, and the mode is always resorted to when a suspicion exists that the boards are not sufficiently seasoned, or they are known not to be so. The headings of these folds are either square, splayed, or ploughed and tongued. If a heading occurs in the length of the floor, it should be invariably made to fall over a joist, and one heading should not meet another.

2173. In dowelled floors, the dowels should be placed over the middle of the interjoist rather than over the joists, so that the edge of one board may be prevented from passing that of the other. When the boards are only bradded upon one edge, the brads are concealed by driving them in a slanting direction through the outer edge of every successive board, without piercing the upper surface. In adzing the under sides of floor-boards over each joist, great care should be taken to chip away the stuff straight, and also to avoid taking away more of the stuff than is necessary, in which case the soundness of the floor will not be compromised.

2173a. The practice of joining the edges of boards by means of rebates, or of tongued grooves, does not appear to have existed before the 15th century. Previously to that period, the use of ledges dovetailed to the whole or part of their depth into chases, of dovetailed wooden cramps, or of wood or iron pins or dowels, was general. In the cathedral at Messina the

boarding under the tiling is in two thicknesses that cross each other; and, in the cradle roofs, it

Fig. 780e.

Fig. 750f.

was usual to groove and tongue the wainscoting, and also to cover those joints with moulded fillets, as shown in the examples in fig. 780e. The thickness of this wainscoting, which was oak split, not sawn, was only three-eighths of an inch (barely more or less), and it was frequently put together in the manner shown in fig. 780ƒ.

21736. The nailing of floors is not satisfactory in appearance. S. Putney has designed the Pavodilos solid wood flooring to remedy the disadvantages of an ordinary nailed floor, and to obviate the necessity for a parquet floor over it. By a mode of interlocking throughout the sides of each board, a perfectly smooth, air-tight, and dust-proof surface is obtained, free from nail holes and indentations (fig. 780g). This floor is laid upon the joists direct, and edge-nailed to it in the shoulder. Another method is adopted by

S. Jennings, the boards being solid, rabbeted, and tongued, and edge-nailed, forming dust-proof joints, with a fair surface (fig. 780h).

2173c. Woodblock flooring. A warm, solid, durable, non-slippery floor, free from foul air, vermin, and damp, being laid on a concrete bed, is that invented about 1856 by Mr. W. White, F.R.I B.A., and called woodblock flooring. It consists of oblong blocks, placed

diagonally on concrete, being prepared from first or second yellow deals, which are Burnetized and seasoned. This invention has produced other systems. W. Duffy's patent immoveable acme, being pinned at the end and sides. Lowe's improved system, the blocks being secured to the bed of concrete by a composition. S. Jennings's prepared paraffined flooring, which has been laid in several large hospitals and infirmaries, for which places it appears well suited, as also in houses. Geary's patent premier system, wherein the blocks are keyed down and cannot get loose. In Gary and Walker's improved patent Invincible system, each bl ck forming the flooring is firmly keyed to the substructure by means of metal keys dovetailed into the under side of the blocks; the other end of the keys being embedded in a matrix, acting not only as a damp-proof course and against dry rot, but also as a floating to the concrete foundation in place of the usual cement surface. Another is Nightingale and Co.'s bevelled principle of woodblock flooring. Ebner's patent hydrofuge floor is formed of, first, a cement bed in which are set small iron channels; second, a bed of mastic which runs into the channels and into grooves formed in the bottom of the wood bl cks or parquet; it is considered to be a fireproof, damp-proof, noiseless, and warm floor.

2173d. It is stated that in Western Australia both the woods called Jarrah and Karri are used for paving, and from exhaustive tests it is considered that Karri is the superior wood for most purposes, and paving in particular. This refers to paving for roadways, a subject of high importance, and upon which opinions are much divided. It, however, does not come within the province of the joiner, and scarcely within the scope of this work. The engineer to the Corporation of the City of London reported (1888) that about forty years since many of the principal thoroughfares of the City were paved with wood, most of which proved unsatisfactory; in 1853 only eight streets remained so paved. Since 1873 (December) the granite in nearly the whole of the main thoroughfares in the City has been replaced by either asphalte or wood, but mainly asphalte. Of the latter there are now 23,579 lineal yards, or about 13 miles; and of the former, 10,898 lineal yards, or about 6 miles. The parishes in the metropolis differ in their opinions, some entirely condemning wood for asphalte, others using wood only, and one, at least, keeping to granite as cheapest in all ways.

2173e. Parquetry, &c. Floors of principal rooms of the better class of houses are now being finished with parquetry. It is composed of different pieces of some four or five coloured and hard woods, arranged in regular geometrical figures, for the whole of a room, corridor, or gallery; or applied as borders round carpets, to treads and risers of stairs and landings; and even as dadoes, panellings, friezes, &c. Parquetry is kept clean by sweeping and periodical waxing. It is usually made solid, one inch thick, grooved, tongued, and keyed at the back and corners. When the woods are applied only as a veneer, they are liable to warp and separate by heat. Turpin's thin parquet floor is in. thick, prepared on deal back laminations to wear equal to inch sold parquet; it can be used for veneering an old existing deal floor, and is susceptible of removal at pleasure.

16

2173f. Wood carpet parquetry is three-eighths of an inch thick, firmly nailed down with small barbed wire brads on to the top of the old floor; it is stated to be of a durable nature and texture, bearing constant traffic. It may likewise be used for wainscotings, and walls and ceilings. Ebner's parquetry is attached firmly to basement floors without any under flooring, as above explained. "Wood tapestry (Howard's patent) for covering walls, ceilings, and other surfaces with real wood at a less cost than painting and graining," dates from about 1865.

2173g. Marquetry, or the inlaying of coloured woods, became very general at the latter end of the 16th century. Oak was inlaid with ebony ornaments in the panels and stiles of wainscoting; and the framing of doors, windows, and shutters was sometimes made of dark-coloured woods, the panels being of light colours, inlaid with ornaments, profiles of heads, &c. This process is applied greatly to furniture, where it is imitated by paint. A new method has been introduced, of applying a printed pattern to the prepared wood, as in the Tunbridge ware, and then varnishing it as usual. "Ornamental pyrographic woodwork," for panels and in cabinet work, being a process for burning-in ornament upon wood, is now in operation.

FRAMING.

2174. In fig. 781. are shown several methods for framing angles in dadoes, skirtings, troughs, and other objects, whereof A exhibits the method of mitring a dado on exterior angles in an apartment. In fixing this together, brads may be driven from each side. B is a method of framing used for troughs or other rectangular wooden vessels. method of putting a dado or skirting together at any interior angle of a room.

C is a

This mode

is also employed for water-trunks, or troughs. In D is shown the manner of fixing and finishing two pieces of framing together, with a bead at their meeting, by which the joint is concealed. It is used only in common finishings. In those of a better sort the angle is kept entire, and only a three-eighth bead used at the joint. It is of great importance in all joiner's work to preserve the sharpness of the angles of the work, and many prefer to employ the method shown in F, without any bead at the joint. In this the joint is made as close as possible, and is well glued together. If additional strength be required, blockings may be glued in the interior angle, which will make it quite firm. The method. by a simple mitre at E, is not so good as at A, because it has no abut

ment.

2175. When it is required to glue up large work, those edges which are to receive the glue should be well warmed at a fire, and then, while warm, and the glue as hot as possible, they should be united, inasmuch as glue never holds well when it is chilled or cold.

Fig. 781.

2175a. In studying mediæval framing, much attention should be given to the modes in which the junction of pieces was effected; there are two which are chiefly important. The first is a characteristic in the work of the carpenter as well as of the joiner, viz., the shoulder, either solid or applied (figs. 701k. and 7017.). In the first case, it is not economical of material, which was a great point of consideration; and therefore it is rarely seen except on short pieces, such as the posts of doorways: but as an applied means of strength it is almost as common in good work as a corbel in masonry. The second is the use of the mortice and tenon with trenails; and the extreme care which was given to this part of the work is scarcely to be expected in these days of speed and cheapness. It may be predicted that no truly medieval work will now be ever reproduced except in the fancy-work of the cabinet-maker and the smith.

21756. Another peculiarity is the use of stops to all chamfers and mouldings at points of junction of framing: it is not until the last phase of pointed art, that the stop of the moulding of a stile is worked in the rail, or that the corner of a panel is rounded: it is only in the dawn of the renaissance that the four-panel quirk ogee front and square back can be portion of a specification for a door; for a mitre-joint is eminently not a feature of mediæval joinery. The juxtaposition, even accidentally of two stop-chamfered edges, suggests a means of enriching work, whether in open or close panels. The avoidance of work against the grain, and of large hollows, is also mentioned as a characteristic of joiner's work in pointed art; but this disappears in the course of the 15th century. The mediæval joiner, depending sometimes upon halving his work together, more frequently thought time less valuable than material, and did not repent a profusion of morticing and tenoning, to which he added the trouble of fasteaing with wooden trenails or iron pins. As large an amount of rebating and of grooving, however, was done in framing by the joiner as could be expected by those who were accustomed to the back-jointed and the grooved work of the mason.

2175c. Perhaps the most defective part of the joinery of the middle ages is that which consisted in planting one thickness upon another. The contrivances in glueing and dovetailing were not of themselves sufficient; and recourse was obliged to be had to nails. The absence of screws and nails, except where nail heads could be made decoration, is another characteristic of mediæval joinery. It was not until the beginning of the 14th century that the transition from planted work to panel work can be said to have appeared in any strength. At the end of that century, an architect might have specified a door as nine panelled, beaded three edges, chamfered bottom, and raised panel both sides; but his beads would have been stuck in the solid, and not applied: during the whole of the 14th century planted work was commonly introduced, as in screens, closets, and shutters, where perhaps a sham buttress serves to conceal the wide joint made by the work in consequence of the inaccurate finish of the bingeing. A curious method, which must have been laborious before the introduction of the plane, of attaching the planted work, consisted in running in the ground a chase wide enough to take the whole breadth of the planted stuff, and then to run a couple of grooves in that chase; of course the back of the planted stuff had to be worked to match, with two tongues to enter the grooves.

2175d. The size of the materials was restricted. Three inch stuff for the thickness of rails and stiles, with a not much wider face; inch and a half stuff for mouldings to be planted; panels not more than eight inches wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick; may be quoted as usual dimensions for joiner's work. The observance of this restriction constitutes an essential characteristic of medieval work.