CHINERY.

The planing machine, next to the saw, is perhaps the most important
agent for the conversion and manipulation of wood in use; and before
proceeding to consider it, in its present form, says the author of
this article, Mr. F.H. Morse, in the _Northwestern Lumberman_, it may
not be out of place to notice briefly its origin and history.

The first man to employ power in the operation of smoothing the
surface of wood was Sir Samuel Bentham, of London, England, and to him
belongs the honor of having discovered the principle upon which all
planing machines operate. A brief personal notice of this remarkable
inventor will serve to show under what circumstances the planing
machine originated. His education was secured at the Westminster
school of London, and, as far as can be ascertained from the meager
records of his life that have come down to us, was of the most
thorough kind, both classical and scientific, that could be obtained
at that time (1770). When his education was finished, he was bound to
the master shipwright of the Woolwich dockyard, to whom he served an
apprenticeship of seven years, acquiring in that time a practical
knowledge of the methods of working in both wood and iron then in
vogue, and receiving the best scientific instruction that the
development of that period afforded. After his term of apprenticeship
had expired, he spent about two years in looking up the local
peculiarities of other shipyards whose methods of working differed in
some respects from those of the Woolwich mechanics.

In 1779 he was ordered by the government to examine into the progress
of shipbuilding in Northern Europe, and in carrying out this
commission he repaired to Russia, where he invented the first machine
for planing wood. Its mode of operation, whether reciprocating or
rotating, it is impossible to ascertain positively, but the conclusion
arrived at, after referring to the specifications of his first patent,
which was issued in 1791, is that it worked upon the former principle
by means closely analogous to the operation of planing by hand. He
seems to have made no use of his venture in Russia, though he resided
there several years and filled several important positions under the
Russian Government. He returned to his native country in 1791 and
joined his brother, Jeremy Bentham, who had at that time just received
an appointment from the government to introduce industrial prisons in
England. To utilize the unski