"French architects and engineers in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries occupied themselves a good deal with roofs with curved ribs, and two systems of constructing the rib were worked out. In the most modern of them, that invented by Colonel Emy, the ribs were constructed of a series of thicknesses of bent timber, one on the back of another, and held together by bolts. In the older system that of Philibert de l'Orme, the ribs were also built up, but the pieces composing them are placed side by side, and either form a polygon approaching a semicircle or are cut to bring them to a curve.&bnsp;thumb|Bourse de commerce (dome of the Paris Corn Market)In fact, the ribs are very much such as... used for the great dome of the Paris Corn Market. There is, however, a great difference between a dome—the strongest of all forms—and one permitting the introduction of as many rings of ties as may be desired; and a roof over an ordinary oblong space, where no such binding together is admissible, and where straight rafters may have to be used, which loads the rib at certain points only. In the latter case, a good many precautions have, generally speaking, to be taken to prevent the rib from being unequally loaded, and so either spreading or losing its shape in some other way. The rib made of unbent timber, side by side, on De l'Orme's plan, is admitted to be stronger than the one made of bent timbers laid one on the back of the other; but both have been largely used, and good examples of both may be met with, even if we confine ourselves to English ones alone, and leave the French ones unnoticed. thumb|Chatsworth - Great Conservatory in the 19th centuryA very fine roof with ribs, one on which the load (though light) is borne without a rafter solely by the rib, is the one erected over the great conservatory built by His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth. ...It consists of a wide and lofty central portion, with a kind of broad aisle at the sides, roofed at a lower level. The central roof here is of the section of a pointed arch and hipped at both ends, and is entirely covered with glass. It is carried by timber ribs, and the glazing is on the ridge and furrow principle. The low aisle referred to forms to some extent an abutment for the ribs, and the ridge-and-furrow glazing helps, no doubt, to fortify them, but still the greater part of the strength is derived from the ribs themselves."