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24. Labour-saving Machines.—In no branch of manufacture does the application of labour-saving machinery produce by simple means more important results than in the working of wood.

Wood being obtained in America in any quantity, it is there applied to every possible purpose, and its manufacture has received that attention which its importance deserves.

It would be difficult to point in any country to a more successful application of machinery to the working of wood than was made in England long ago in the manufacture of ship blocks, by the late Sir Isambard Brunel, aided by the late Mr. Maudslay; other instances of mechanism most ingeniously adapted to similar purposes might also be cited. It cannot, therefore, be said that in England nothing has been done in