With the planer as with the lathe, the French were the pioneers. Plumier, a French writer on mechanical subjects, published in 1754 a description of a machine which had been used for some years, consisting of two parallel bars of wood or iron connected at their extremities. The article to be planed was fixed between them, and a frame guided between the same bars was moved lengthwise by a long screw and carried a tool which took a planing cut from the work. The machine was intended for ornamenting the handles of knives and was said by Plumier to have been an English invention. A planing machine invented in 1751 by Nicholas Forq, a French clock maker, for the purpose of planing the pump barrels used in the Marly water works to supply the fountains at Versailles, is shown in Fig. 17. These pump barrels were made up of wrought iron staves bound together by hoops. There were quite a number of these barrels from 10 inches to 4 feet in diameter and from 7 feet to 10 feet long. The illustration, taken from Buchanan’s “Mill Work,” published in 1841,[48] is not complete, as it lacks the carriage carrying the planing tool which was not shown on the original drawing. The general construction of the machine however is quite clear. The built-up barrel is shown in place. The cutter was carried backward and forward between two parallel iron bars set horizontally through the cylinder. Either the tool or the pump barrel must have been given a rotative feed. Its action was therefore equivalent to planing on centers, and it is said to have done this fairly large work in a satisfactory manner. [48] Buchanan: “Practical Essays on Mill Work and Other Machinery.” London, 1841. Volume of Plates. [Illustration: _NOTE.--The spots on the photograph were the yellow stains of age on the original plate_ FIGURE 17. FRENCH PLANING MACHINE BY NICHOLAS FORQ, 1751] Bentham described a planer in his well-known patent of 1793 and Bramah in his patent of 1802. Matthew Murray is said to have built one in 1814 to machine the faces of D-slide valves, which were originally invented by Murdock in 1786 but improved by Murray in 1802. Richard Roberts built a planer in 1817 which is, without doubt, the earliest planer now in existence. It is in the South Kensington Museum in London and a picture of it is given in Fig. 20.[49] It will be seen that the modern planer design was already beginning to take shape. The chisel and file marks on the bed and ways indicate that it was itself made without the use of a planer. It had vertical and horizontal feeds, an angular adjustment and separate tool-feed for the head, and a hinged clamp for the tool to allow it to lift on the return stroke. The table, which was hand-operated through a chain drive, was 52 inches long by 11 inches wide. [49] No. 1619. Cat. M. E. Collection, Part II, p. 272.