Fortunately, in 1774, John Wilkinson, of Bersham, hit upon the idea, which had escaped both Smeaton and Watt, of making the boring bar heavier, running it clear through the cylinder and giving it a fixed support at the outboard end as shown in Fig. 7. The superiority of this arrangement was at once manifest, and in 1776 Boulton wrote that “Mr. Wilkinson has bored us several cylinders almost without error; that of 50 inches diameter, which we have put up at Tipton, does not err the thickness of an old shilling in any part.”[5] For a number of years, Wilkinson cast and bored all the cylinders for Boulton & Watt. [5] Farey: “Treatise on the Steam Engine,” p. 328. 1827. The importance to Boulton & Watt of the timely aid of Wilkinson’s boring machine can hardly be overestimated. It made the steam engine a commercial success, and was probably the first metal-working tool capable of doing large, heavy work with anything like present-day accuracy.[6] [6] Watt’s beautiful parallel motion, invented in 1785, was made necessary by the fact that there were no planers to machine a crosshead and guides. Planers were not developed until thirty years later. We hardly realize the crudity of the tools available in the eighteenth century. In all machinery the principal members were of wood, as that could be worked by the hand tools then in use. The fastenings and smaller parts only were of metal, and consisted of castings and forgings fitted by hand. There were some lathes of the very simplest type. Most of them were “pole” lathes, operated by a cord reaching from a foot treadle, around the work itself, and up to a pole or wooden spring attached to the ceiling. The work rotated alternately forward and backward, and was caught with a hand tool each time as it came forward. Two are shown in Fig. 2, one at the back and one at the left. Only the very best forms had continuous motion from a direct drive on the live spindle, as shown at the right of the same figure. This figure is reproduced from the French _Dictionnaire des Sciences_, published in 1772. Such lathes were almost useless for metal cutting, as they lacked both the necessary power and a holding device strong enough and accurate enough to guide a tool. The slide-rest, while it had been invented, had not been put into practical form or come into general use. There were a few rude drilling and boring machines, but no planing machines, either for metal or wood. The tool equipment of the machinist, or “millwright,” as he was called, consisted chiefly of a hammer, chisel and file. The only measuring devices were calipers and a wooden rule, with occasional reference perhaps to “the thickness of an old shilling,” as above. Hand forging was probably as good as or better than that of today. Foundry work had come up to at least the needs of the time. But the appliances for cutting metal were little better than those of the Middle Ages.