121. Tredgold, Thomas.
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES / OF / CARPENTRY: / A TREATISE
/ ON THE PRESSURE AND EQUILIBRIUM OF BEAMS
AND TIMBER FRAMES; / THE RESISTANCE OF TIMBER;
AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF / FLOORS, ROOFS, CENTRES,
BRIDGES, &c. / WITH PRACTICAL RULES AND EXAMPLES. /
TO WHICH IS ADDED, / AN ESSAY ON THE NATURE AND
PROPERTIES OF TIMBER, / INCLUDING THE METHODS OF
SEASONING, AND THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF DECAY,
/ WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF THE KINDS OF WOOD USED
IN BUILDING. / ALSO, / NUMEROUS TABLES / OF THE
SCANTLINGS OF TIMBER FOR DIFFERENT PURPOSES, THE
SPECIFIC GRAVITIES OF MATERIALS, &c. / ILLUSTRATED
BY TWENTY-TWO ENGRAVINGS. / BY THOMAS TREDGOLD.
/ -While we give ourselves infinite trouble to pursue investigations
relating to the motions and masses of / bodies which move at immeasurable
distances from our planet, we have never thought of determining
the forces / necessary to prevent the roofs of our houses from
falling on our heads. EDIN. REV. vol. vi. p. 386. / LONDON: /
PRINTED FOR J. TAYLOR, / AT THE ARCHITECTURAL LIBRARY,
No. 59, HIGH HOLBORN. / 1820.
4to. Title page ([iii]); dedication ([v]); preface ([vii]-xiv); table of
contents ([xv]-xx); text ([1]-238); index ([239]-50); errata (1 leaf);
22 engraved plates.
The engraver was James Davis, about whom nothing is known.
Other than the evidence of this book, there is little known about
Thomas Tredgold. The delineator for the twenty-two plates, he gives his
reasons for publishing this treatise as follows:
In the course of the last century several treatises on Carpentry have
appeared; but in none of them is to be found any thing on the mechanical principles
of the art, except it be a few rules for calculating the strength of timber;
and these are founded upon erroneous views of the subject, and therefore
are not to be relied upon. The greater part of the works on Carpentry are
confined almost wholly to what is termed "finding the lines;" a branch of science
to which the celebrated Monge gave the name of Descriptive Geometry:
and in the works of Mr. P. Nicholson [Nos. 88, 89, and 90], this part of Carpentry
has been so ably handled, that little more seems to be required on the
subject.
But the knowledge of practical and descriptive geometry is not the only
part of science that a Carpenter ought to acquire; for when it is considered
that the art of Carpentry is directed chiefly to the support of weight or pressure,
it will be obvious that a considerable knowledge of the principles of
mechanics is required to practise it with success. And it is not to carpenters
alone that the study of the mechanical principles of Carpentry should be
confined; for in the modern practice of building, it forms one of the most
important departments of the science of construction; and a knowledge of
construction is so essential to the art of design, in Architecture, that it is difficult
to believe how much it has been neglected, and how little it is esteemed
by the students of that profession. [P. vii]
As the mechanical principles of Carpentry have never been published in
a separate form, I have attempted in the following pages, to supply that defect.
[P. viii]
The Elementary Principles of Carpentry being a title which includes
all that is essential to the art, it therefore embraces a wider range than I have
attempted to fill; and to avoid promising more in a title than is performed in
the work, I have omitted the definite article, and made it "Elementary
Principles of Carpentry.
Lord Kames made a like limitation to his "Elements of Criticism," which
of course suggested this. [P. x]
The Elements is divided into ten sections - nature and laws of pressure;
results of experiments; construction of floors; roofs; domes; partitions;
centers for bridges; wooden bridges; construction of joints and
straps; nature and properties of timber.
The book was ordered by Jefferson for the University in the section
on "Technical Arts" of the want list, but there is no record that it was
received during his lifetime. A recently acquired copy has now entered
the library's collections, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Foundation.
U. Va.
*TH5604.T8.1820
