Excerpt from Records of the Borough of Nottingham, Vol. 2: Being a Series of Extracts From the Archives of the Corporation of Nottingham; King Henry IV. To King Richard III. 1399-1485 The original of the view of the Town Hall in 1741 is a pen and ink drawing in the possession of the Corporation of Notting ham, now preserved at the Art Museum, Nottingham Castle. This drawing was clearly intended to be engraved. There is a hole in it on the right hand side over the steps; this is left blank in the plate. The explanations of the letters in this view agree with Deering's account, so far as it goes. It will be noticed that no explanation of f is given. It is clearly, like 'c, ' the ancient gaol for debtors. At the opening 'e' is portrayed a turner in wood. He is using the old pole or 'dead-centre lathe, which was the general form of lathe in use in the last century. It is now almost entirely out of use in this country. In this lathe the piece of wood required to be turned is secured between two centres fixed in two moveable pieces of wood known as 'puppets' or poppets.' The 'puppets' are fastened at the distance from each other required by the size of the work in hand. When the piece of wood to be turned has been fixed between the centres a cord is passed round it twice or thrice. One end of this cord is secured to the treadle of the lathe and the other to the end of a spring-lath affixed to the ceiling. By pressing the treadle a rotary motion is imparted by the cord to the piece of wood that it is desired to turn. When the pressure on the treadle is released the spring-lath causes the piece of wood to revolve in a contrary dirce tion. Hence it is only possible to use the cutting tools half the time. This is the reason this form of lathe has dropped out of use. In the above drawing the spring-lath is clearly shown over the man's head. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.