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 this branch of manufacture; but it must be confessed that the improvements which have been made have not been extended, as they might have been, to ordinary purposes, though, in this respect, a desire for progress is now evidently manifested.

A house in Liverpool is importing the best machines of the kind in use in America, and is making great efforts to introduce them generally in England.

25. Saw Mills, Lowell.—The trees sawn up in the Lowell saw mills are floated down from the interior of the country by river; they are docked in a basin in the timber yard, and are dragged up an inclined plane into the interior of the mill as they are wanted.

In an upper story are placed two large saw frames, and between them travels an endless chain running along the shop floor under pullies, and extending down the inclined plane nearly to the edge of the basin. To any part of this endless chain may be hooked another chain, which, being passed round one or more trees as they lie in the basin, drags them up into the mill and deposits them alongside the saw frames.

Shingles, used for covering the roofs and sides of houses, are made in vast quantities.

A circular saw cuts them 16 inches long, from