Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/63

 1868.] Chairs, Settles, Pews, Forms, Stools, and Seats generally. 43 cuted pilgrims, some of rank enough to be known to the fashionable world, and others little better than the vulgar, who brought this chair with them to the bleak northern coast of North America, about where they founded the greater Boston ; there finding an indifferent solace in its short and jerking undula- tions, which must often have reminded them of the nauseating, wavering quiver of their petty ships upon the chopping sea. The nursing-chair, as in the margin, is, from its low seat, already eagerly occupied by the first comer. The rockers, being sawed across the grain, have a tendency to crack or break short off; but by lowering the back part of the seat, an inch or two, and making the back more upright, lengthening the rocker behind, and, prolonging the side- pieces of the bottom, halting them with the back-pieces, until they fit into the back-tips of the rockers, a much stronger and easier chair is produced. There yet remains the Yankee seat- rocker, with arms. This consists, in pro- file, of two equal and concentric segments of a circle, opposed and conjoined in convexity, kept from separating or slip- ping by two pieces of broad and heavy cross-webbing on each side, running one pair from the front of the bottom to the back of the leg-curve, the other from the front leg-angle to the back of the seat. This is formed of steam-bent pieces, and has stuffed seat and back. It is large, heavy, and cannot upset. It has an ex- tended sweeping undulation, and plenty of room ; but when thrown back, the bottom rises much too high in front, so that it requires a muscular effort to de- press the seat so as to sit in it. Alto- gether, except its workmanlike construc- tion, which permits no fracture, every curve being with the grain, it is no im- provement upon the ordinary improved American rocking-chair. The above must be understood of all hard-seat chairs designed for ease. Yet that which is easiest to sit in is, from the lowness of the seat, and consequent greater strain upon the knee-joints, hardest to rise from, so that, while the easier pattern will abound in the sitting-