Sawing Timber.
When a timber-tree is felled, the branches, arms, and boughs, are cut off, and the bark stripped, this being valuable for many purposes. The trunk is then sawed square, and again cut into planks, deals, battens, &c., as the different-sized boards into which it is reduced are called.
Teak and mahogany are imported into this country in logs, distinguished from the long beams known technically as timber, by their width and thickness being considerable in proportion to their length.
Timber is sawed in countries producing, or using it, in great quantities in saw-mills, in which the tools are worked by water or steam, as described in the last chapter; and it is also sawed into battens, laths, &c., by circular saws, turned by machinery, like a lathe; but when timber is sawed by hand, it is done by two men acting in concert in the following manner:—A pit is generally chosen, round the margin of which a stout frame is laid. The beam to be sawed is laid along the centre of this frame, in the direction of the length of the pit. One man stands on the beam while another is in the pit below him, and each alternately raises or pulls down a large vertical saw, with which the beam is cut lengthwise into planks. Wedges of wood are placed in the fissure as the work proceeds, to keep the cut open, and thus allow the saw to play freely. This is very hard labour, especially to the upper man, who has not only to raise the weight of the saw in the up-stroke, but to guide it correctly along the chalked line on the beam. This man gets higher wages, and is called the top-sawyer, a term technically given in jest to any one who is, or fancies himself, of superior importance.