To visit one of our large manufactories of pianos is a lesson in the noble art of taking pains. Genius itself, says Carlyle, means, first of all, "a transcendent capacity for taking trouble." Everywhere in these vast and interesting establishments we find what we may call the perfection of painstaking. The construction of an American piano is a continual act of defensive warfare against the future inroads of our climate,--a climate which is polar for a few days in January, tropical for a week or two in July, Nova-Scotian now and then in November, and at all times most trying to the finer woods, leathers, and fabrics. To make a piano is now not so difficult; but to make one that will stand in America,--that is very difficult. In the rear of the Messrs. Steinway's factory there is a yard for seasoning timber, which usually contains an amount of material equal to two hundred and fifty thousand ordinary boards, an inch thick and twelve feet long; and there it remains from four months to five years, according to its nature and magnitude. Most of the timber used in an American piano requires two years' seasoning at least. From this yard it is transferred to the steam-drying house, where it remains subjected to a high temperature for three months. The wood has then lost nearly all the warp there ever was in it, and the temperature may change fifty degrees in twelve hours (as it does sometimes in New York) without seriously affecting a fibre. Besides this, the timber is sawed in such a manner as to neutralize, in some degree, its tendency to warp, or, rather, so as to make it warp the right way. The reader would be surprised to hear the great makers converse on this subject of the warping of timber. They have studied the laws which govern warping; they know why wood warps, how each variety warps, how long a time each kind continues to warp, and how to fit one warp against another, so as to neutralize both. If two or more pieces of wood are to be glued together, it is never done at random; but they are so adjusted that one will tend to warp one way, and another another. Even the thin veneers upon the case act as a restraining force upon the baser wood which they cover, and in some parts of the instrument the veneer is double for the purpose of keeping both in order. An astonishing amount of thought and experiment has been expended upon this matter of warping,--so much, that now not a piece of wood is employed in a piano, the grain of which does not run in the precise direction which experience has shown to be the best.