By scribing is meant, generally, the method of making one piece of stuff fit against another when the joint is irregular; thus the plinth of a room is made to meet or correspond with the unevenness of the floor; in this manner, by opening your compasses to the greatest distance the plinth is from the floor where some parts touch it, and letting one leg run along upon the floor or uneven surface, the other leg will leave a mark on the plinth, which if we cut away the stuff to that mark, it will then make a good joint with the floor; but the great use of scribing to the joiner is, that of joining moulding of panels or cornices that shall, when placed together, seem a regular mitre joint; and it has this advantage over the common method of mitreing - that if the stuff should shrink, it will scarcely alter the appearance of it, whilst that of the mitre, under the same circumstances, causes a gap to show itself, and the joint to appear bad. The method is this: to cut one piece of the moulding to the required mitre, and then, instead of cutting the other to correspond to it, cut away the parts of the first piece, till we come to the edge of the moulding, which will then fit as the other moulding, and appear as a regular mitre.