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We have furnished, then, our workshop, or rather, let us say, we see it in our "mind's eye" furnished as we should wish it to be. And now we may lay in our stock of wood.

Several boards of half-inch pine, perfectly dry and sound, without knots; these are of first necessity. Such boards are generally about 12 feet in length and from 12 to 15 or even 20 or more inches in breadth. If a little stock can be laid in of such boards when an opportunity occurs of obtaining exceptionally clean stuff, it will be well to have them by us. A board or two of three-quarters stuff, and a board of inch stuff, all sound and clean pine, must be provided.

And here we may pause for a moment.

We intend to begin our organ by making a set of wooden pipes. Hence we need not provide ourselves with more timber for the present than we shall need for this first operation. But as in our imaginary furnishing of the workshop, we included several or many things which belong rather to future than to immediate use, so we may here place the reader in a position to form some idea of the further expense to which he will be put for the purchase of timber for his proposed small organ of four or five stops. The pine boards just enumerated will give us our first set of pipes; but when these are ready, we shall require some rather costly wood for the sound-board. This should be Honduras mahogany, often called "Bay wood," and of three thicknesses, say, three-quarters stuff for the table of the sound-board;ssss1 a full inch, or, still better, five-quarters, for the upper boards; and some very thin stuff, three-eighths or less, known as "coach-panel," for the sliders. The quantities, or number of square feet, of these mahogany boards will be determined by considerations discussed in a subsequent chapter. The wood must be carefully selected, for the grain of it is often tortuous and unkindly for the plane; it must be, like the pine, free from large knots, flaws, and cracks; and the completeness of its seasoning should be quite unquestionable and beyond the reach of suspicion.