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A wall built with the thoroughness of David, the ancient, and solidified by the mortising of Time, ran directly from Hippicus to the Tyropean Valley, joining the tremendous fortifications of Moriah and so cut off Zion from the advance of the army.
I determined to build it entirely of wood, first, because the wreck afforded us abundance of material, and next, because I could do all the cutting-out, the sawing, planing, mortising, and fitting aboard the ship, where such tools and conveniences as we possessed were at immediate command, and where I could work from early morn to dewy eve without fear of interruption of any kind.
It must not be ground to a very acute angle, or the objections that are sought to be avoided will reappear in another form. Great care must be taken that the mortising does not extend to a depth that will cause the back to be thin and weak.
I felt no difficulty on the score of light; and as it would have availed but little for the work in which I was engaged, I never even thought of its absence. I did not progress as fast as a carpenter would have done with his mortising chisel, or a cooper with his breast-bit or auger; but I had the gratification of knowing that I was progressing.
But to get a little needed capital he hired out to a manufacturer of woolen cloth at Hempstead, Long Island, for a dollar and a half a day. A dollar a day was good wages then, but Cooper had inventive skill in working with machinery. He had already invented and patented a machine for mortising the hubs of wagon-wheels. Now he perfected a machine for finishing woolen cloth.
At present, mortising and dowelling have come to the front as proper processes, especially for table-building; and this time the style appears under the name of "Mission furniture."
The figures are made of small pieces of wood neatly fitted together by inlaying and mortising, without any spike of any kind. When one reflects that the Indians seen by Lewis and Clark constructed their large canoes with very poor tools, it is impossible to withhold one's admiration of their industry and patience. The journal says:
"In my seventeenth year I entered as apprentice to the coach-making business, in which I remained four years, till I became 'of age. I made for my employer a machine for mortising the hubs of carriages, which proved very profitable to him, and was, perhaps, the first of its kind used in this country.
They had no guns, and could not shoot their game, whatever it was; but each of them had a biliong. This was the implement Achang had bought in Sarawak. It looked something like a pickaxe with only one arm, the end of which was fashioned like a mortising chisel, and was used as an axe.
During this period he not only mastered the details of the trade, but learned in his hours of leisure other branches, such as ornamental wood-carving, and made several inventions, one of which was a machine for mortising hubs, an operation performed by hand up to that time.
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