It was a noble array of woodwork and machinery with which the nations surprised and greeted the world, at each of its notable international Expositions during the century. Each occasion surpassed its predecessor in the beauty of construction of the machines displayed and efficiency of their work. The names of the members of this array were hard and uncouth, such as the axe, the adze, and the bit, the auger, bark-cutting and grinding machines, blind-slat boring, and tenoning, dovetail, mortising, matching and planing, wood splitting, turning, wheeling and planing, wood-bending, rim-boring dowelling, felly-jointing, etc., etc. These names and the clamour of the machines were painful to the ear, but to the thoughtful, they were converted into sweeter music, when reflection brought to mind the hard toil of human hands they had saved, the before unknown comforts and blessings of civilisation they had brought and were bringing to the human race, and the enduring forms of beauty they had produced. To the invention of wood-working machinery we are also indebted for the awakening of interest in the qualities of wood for a vast number of artistic purposes. It was a revelation, at the great Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, to behold the specimens of different woods from all the forests of the earth, selected and assembled to display their wonderful grain and other qualities, and showing how well nature was storing up for us in its silent shades those growths which were waiting the genius of invention to convert into forms of use and beauty for every home. CHAPTER XXII. FURNITURE. So far as machinery is concerned for converting wood into furniture, the same has been anticipated in the previous chapter, but much remains to be said about the articles of furniture themselves. Although from ancient days the most ancient countries provided by hand elaborate and beautiful articles of furniture of many descriptions, yet it has been left for modern advances in machinery and kindred arts to yield that universal supply of convenient and ornamental furniture which now prevails.