THE FIRST SAW MILLS.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5073, 18 April 1885, Page 4

THE FIRST SAW MILLS.

The old practice of making boards was to split up the logs with wedges, and, inconvenient as the practice was, it was no easy' matter to persuade the world that thing could be done in any better way. Saw mills were first used in Europe in the fifteenth century, but so late as 1655, an English ambassador, having seen a saw mill in France, thought it a novelty which deserved pariieular description. It fa amusing to cots how the aversion to labour saving machinery has always agitated England. The first saw mill was established by a Dutchman in 166*3 ; but the public outcry acainst the new fancied machine was so violent that the proprietor was forced t© decamp with greater expedition than ever did a Dutchman before. The evil wbb thus kept out of England for several year*, or rather generations, but in 1768 an unlucky timber merchant, hoping that for so long a time the public would beless watchful of its interests, made a rash attempt to construct another mill. The guardians of the public welfare, however, were on the alert, and a eonscientiou mob at once collected and pulled the mills t<\ pieces. ,