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On page 20, last volume of the Scientific American, we published an illustrated description of the Planing Machine ot George W. Beardslee, of Albany, N. Y., and made some very strong statements respecting its working qualities. Since that time this machine has been winning its way into public use and favor. In the city of Albany, Ahijah Jones has invested a large amount of capital in dressing lumber, and has three of the Beardslee machines in active operation, each of which (as we learn by the Albany Argus) dresses 4,000 boards or planks in ten hours, including all stoppages. One of these machines has planed stuff lor Messrs. Boardman Gray, of Albany—the famous pianoforte makers—which always was planed by hand heretofore, no power planing machine being able to do the work. The stuff was for the " Tuning Boards " of pianos. There are now forty of Beardslee's machines in operation, in different parts of our countiy, and the demand for them is so great, that 150 men are now employed in their construction at Townsend's Machine and Foundry Works, in Albany. A large and splendid machine is now being constructed, tor London, as the latest American improvement in such machines; it will excite admiration, and what is better, conter great benefits upon those who are to run it. The establishment of Mr. Jones is but new; he owns the right for Albany, which is a great city tor lumber, and it seems he is driving a thriving business. One of these machines is now in operation in Williamsburg, near this city; the lumber which it dresses is nearly as smooth as a polished slab of marble. Every one, who has seen the lumber planed by it, has spoken enthusiastically of its beautiful and even surface. Beardslee's machine is a " line cutter," and has a self-adjusting throat, and is capable of the nicest adjustment to plane boards of great thinness ; of this we have an evidence in the tuning boards which were planed lor the company mentioned above. We have seen some thin boards planed by it, which we are sure could not be planed by a rotary cutter with safety. We welcome every improvement in machinery, let the improvement come from what quarter it may, and be it for any usefal object whatever.
