EXAMEN DES AVANTAGES

8vo, pp. 29, [1] blank; with four folding tables at end; printed on pale blue paper; occasional light spotting and very slight marginal dampstaining to last few leaves, not affecting text, but otherwise clean and fresh; in later patterned wrappers, spine almost entirely lacking, otherwise lightly worn.

First and seemingly only edition of this report on the relative merits of the axe and the saw in the cutting of firewood, presented by the inspector of waters and forests for the Colmar arrondissement.

Promptedby the scarcity and excessive cost of fuel, the inspector, a M. Picquet, seeks to demonstrate that the same amount of wood when cut with a saw would produce seven cords, against six when chopped with an axe, and requests permission to demonstrate this with the help of two or three members of the commission. In granting his approval, the prefect of the Haut-Rhin department notes that such a saving would be too considerable to be ignored, and proposes three local officials see with their own eyes how these savings could be made. The resultant report details the experiments, in which eleven trees were designated to be sawn and twelve more to be chopped, and compares not only the amount of useable firewood that resulted but also the amount of work that each method took, and the speed and ease with which wood could be processed. The results are precisely quantified in the four folding tables at the end of the book, and the work concludes with several recommendations, of which the final one is that the results should be disseminated as widely as possible, in both French and German, in order that those working with wood might renounce 'leur ancienne méthode aussi évidemment vicieuse'.

OCLC records no copies outside France.