There is no remedy for this evil except substituting machines for men’s hands. The machine, if it cuts true once, will cut true always. Every piece of wood in a wheel ought to be shaped by machinery. The felloes should be sawn to their exact size, curve, and length by machine saws; they should be bored by machine augurs, and rounded by machine shavers. The spokes should be tenoned by machine saws, and shaped by machine lathes. The naves should be cut by a machine lathe, and the mortises in the same cut by a machine chisel. The spokes should not be driven in by the irregular strokes of a mallet, but be forced into their places by the regular pressure of a machine. And when the tire is put on the wheel should be fixed in a frame, in order to preserve an exact size and shape. When all these things are done, we may hope to procure wooden wheels alike in form and quality, and moreover, accurately circular, which very often they are not at present. All the machines should be worked by a steam engine. There is scarcely any article of manufacture for which there is so large a demand, and there is no great variation in their mode of construction. Coachmakers generally seem to cling to the old traditions of their craft with great tenacity; possibly they think it savours of sacrilege to let progress enter their workshops too rapidly. The above remarks may be qualified by stating that some of the largest manufacturers have introduced machinery, generally, into the departments in which it is applicable, and more particularly in the wheelwrights’ department. Some years since Messrs. Holmes, of Derby, had mechanical appliances worked by steam power for the following purposes:—Cutting tenons on the spokes, squaring the ends of the felloes, also regulating their length according to the size of wheel required; a narrow upright saw for cutting curved timber; machine for cutting felloes of the required size and curve; machine for boring felloes for the ends of spokes, and many other appliances for lightening hand-labour and insuring greater accuracy in the manufacture. But workshops filled up in this way are not yet the rule, though their number is increasing, and so are the inventions for application of mechanical power to the various processes. It seems rather paradoxical to state that the dished or conical wheel is the strongest. But the fact is, its strength arises from the solid hoop-tyre; with a strake tyre the upright wheel would be the strongest. When running, the great lateral strain on the wheel is from the outside. Consequently, if the wheel be dished in an opposite direction, the thrust will be in the direction of the greatest resistance. The spokes cannot yield, because in yielding they would increase the area of the circle, and this the tyre will not permit. Upon the same principle in carpentry, which constitutes the curved or cambered beam the strongest, the dished wheel is stronger than the straight one. [Illustration: Fig. 18.]