The first mechanical appliance designed for the cutting of hard substances, the lathe, still remains the central pivot upon which the organisation of the engineering shop is based. When it was invented no record tells; like the spindle, the loom and the boat, the lathe is a social product and improvement of the appliance has been a purely private affair for many centuries. Used from time immemorial in China, India and Persia, it was brought to Egypt and improved there, but neither in Egypt nor in Europe were the improvements noted. It is impossible, therefore, to date the early stages of the evolution of the machine tool. A curious instance occurred in quite recent times. For a long period historians assumed that the use of the lathe as a metal-cutting tool in Great Britain, originated with the steam engine, but a highly elaborate machine of the lathe type, known to have been built for the second Earl of Macclesfield in 1740, was unearthed and presented to the British Museum some years page 43 ago. Too complex for industrial uses and incapable of withstanding the wear and tear of the workshop, the lathe is worthy of special note, because it contains many of the devices which impart efficiency to the tools of the present day. “The lathe,” says a writer, “has a double iron bar bed, with heavy brass clamps for fixing to the bench. It is driven from a pulley on an overhead shaft which is carried in a block sliding in a frame fixed to the bench. A hand-driven flywheel with a leaden rim is fixed to the shaft and drives a two-speed pulley on the mandrel through a round belt, the tension of which is adjusted by moving the block up or down by means of a long square-threaded screw. The headstock is pivoted between the bars of the bed in the blocks at either end, clamped by bolts to the bed, and extending upwards to carry a device for holding the head-stock in a central position when it is not desired to use the lathe for turning rosettes. A small lever on each block has a slot cut in it which may be made to engage a pin projecting from the headstock. The mandrel rotates in white metal bearings and is able to slide longitudinally, although normally held in its back position by a spring. For screw cutting, three guide-screws of different pitch are cut on the back portion of the mandrel and each screw has beneath it a short lever with a portion of threaded surface that engages the screw and traverses the mandrel when the lever is held up by a wedge. This is the earliest method adopted for screw-cutting on the lathe. The mandrel is screwed at both ends to take chucks… . The slide-rest is of the early French form, and is adjustable for height by a vertical screw and may be firmly clamped at the desired level by a single bolt which passes through the body of the rest and through slots in the movable portion. Screw traverse in one direction is provided, and also a slide at right angles on which the tool is carried. A screw passing through the movable part of the slide abuts against the fixed part so that the depth of cut can be regulated.” Anyone observing carefully the details given can see that, although elaborated for dilettanti uses, the lathe contained many features that, had they become known more generally, would have saved much of the time and effort spent in evolving the workshop lathe.