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extensive application. Five years later, the happy thought of combining the principles of these two inventions, to produce a third much more efficient than either, struck the mind of Crompton, who, by a perfectly original contrivance, effected the union. From twenty spindles, this machine was brought, by more finished mechanism, to admit of a hundred spindles, and thus to exercise a Briarean power. Kelly relinquished the toilsome method of turning the machine by hand, and yoked to it the strength of the rapid Clyde. Watt, with the subtiler and more potent agency of steam, moved an iron arm that never slackens nor tires, which whirls round two thousand spindles in a single machine, Finally, to consummate the wonder, Roberts dismisses the spinner, and leaves the machine to its own infallible guidance. So that, in the year 1834, several thousand spindles may be seen in a single room, revolving with inconceivable rapidity, with no hand to urge their progress, or to guide their operations; drawing out, twisting, and winding up as many thousand threads, with unfailing precision, indefatigable patience, and strength; a scene as magical to the eye which is not familiarized with it, as the effects have been marvellous in augmenting the wealth and population of the country."*

The spirit of improvement, which carried the spinning machinery to so high a degree of perfection, was next directed to the weaving department, and did not rest till that operation was also performed by machinery. A loom, moved by water-power, had been contrived by M. de Gennes, so far back as the seventeenth century, and is described in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society' in 1678. This machine does not, however, appear to have succeeded, and several subsequent attempts were equally unfortunate in their practical results, owing to the necessity of dressing the warp as it unrolled from the beam, which operation required a man to be employed for each loom, so that there was no sav、 ing of expense. This difficulty was happily removed by

* Baines on the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 211-213.

the invention of an extremely ingenious and effectual mode of dressing the warp before it was placed in the loom, which was first applied to use in 1803. The progress of the power-loom, as it is called, though slow at first, has lately very much increased; and, in 1833, there were believed to be not fewer than a hundred thousand power-looms in Great Britain, by far the greater part of which were employed in the manufacture of cotton. The hand-loom weavers in this manufacture, are estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand.

I cannot more appropriately conclude this sketch than in the words of an eloquent foreigner, who has paid a just tribute to British skill and industry:-" Watt improves the steam-engine, and this single improvement causes the industry of England to make an immense stride. This machine represents, at the present time, the power of three hundred thousand horses, or of two millions of men, strong and well fitted for labor, who should work day and night, without interruption, and without repose, to augment the riches of a country, not twothirds the extent of France. A hair-dresser invents, or, at least, brings into action, a machine for spinning cotton ; this alone gives to British industry an immense superiority. Fifty years only after this great discovery, more than one million of inhabitants are employed, in those operations which depend directly or indirectly on the action of this machine. Lastly, England exports cotton, spun and woven, by an admirable system of machinery, to the value of four hundred millions of francs yearly. The Indies, so long superior to Europe-the Indies, which inundated the West with her products and exhausted the riches of Europe-the Indies are conquered in their turn. The British navigator travels in quest of the cotton of India; brings it from a distance of four thousand leagues; commits it to an operation of the machine of Arkwright, and of those that are attached to it; carries back their products to the East, making them again to travel four thousand leagues ;-and, in spite of the loss of time, in spite of the enormous expense incurred by this voyage of eight thousand leagues, the cotton, manufactured by the

machinery of England, becomes less costly than the cotton of India, spun and woven by the hand, near the field that produced it, and sold at the nearest market. great is the power of the progress of machinery."*

So

EIGHTH WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

CLOTHING. THE COTTON MANUFACTURE-ITS BRITISH HISTORY CONTINUED-INTRODUCTION OF STEAM POWER.

THE application of the powers of steam to the purposes of manufacture was a very peculiar and important step in the progress of the art; and it is remarkable, that the patent which secured to the ingenious improver of the steam-engine the profits of his ingenuity, was taken out in the very same year as that which appropriated to Arkwright the advantages of his invention in the spinningmachine. So simultaneous was the impulse which called forth talents, that, though exerted in very different departments, were destined to combine their powers in perfecting a system which was rapidly to advance the prosperity of Great Britain.

Amazing as was the progress which had taken place in the cotton manufacture, prior to 1790, it would soon have found a check upon its further extension, if a power more efficient than water had not been discovered to move its machinery. The building of mills in Lancashire must have ceased, when all the available fall of the streams had been appropriated. The manufacture might, indeed, have spread to other counties, as it has done to some extent; but it could not have flourished in any district, where coal, as well as water, was not to be found; and the diffusion of the mills over a wide space would have been unfavorable to the division of labor, the perfection of machine-making, and the cheapness of conveyance. The improvement of the steam-engine, hap

* Address of M. Charles Dupin to the Mechanics of Paris.

pily, supplied the desired power; which, though not an invention of that age, was then first made of great and extensive utility, by the genius of James Watt.

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The first thought of employing the expansive force of steam as a mechanical power, is believed to have been entertained by Solomon de Caus, engineer to Louis XIII., who proposed the raising of water by steam, as a philosophical principle, in a book written in 1615. In 1630, Charles I. granted a patent to David Ramsaye, a groom of the Privy Chamber, for nine articles of invention, two of which seem to indicate the origin of the steam-engine, viz., "To raise water from low pits by fire," and "To raise water from low places, and mines, and coal-pits, by a new way never yet in use. These facts deprive the Marquis of Worcester of the honor, generally ascribed to him, of having first applied steam as a mechanical power. In the Century of Inventions,' published by that eccentric nobleman in 1663, there is the most distinct statement of the power of steam, which he had proved by its bursting a cannon, and had applied to the producing of fountains ejected forty feet high. The first person who constructed a machine, in which steam was successfully turned to purposes of usefulness, was Captain Savery, who obtained a patent for his invention on 25th July, 1698. This engine, though very ingenious, had many defects. It was, however, afterwards considerably improved and simplified, but was not in a state to be applied to general use, till it came under the hands of the ingenious Watt.

Mr. Watt was a native of Greenock, and settled in Glasgow, as a maker of philosophical instruments, in 1757. He was appointed instrument-maker to the University, and thus became acquainted with Dr. Black, then professor of medicine, and lecturer on chemistry in that Úniversity, who about this time published an account of his important and interesting discovery of latent heat. The knowledge of this discovery led Watt to reflect on the prodigious waste of heat in the steam-engine then in

* Rymer's Fœdera, vol. xix. p. 139.

use, where steam was used merely for the purpose of creating a vacuum in the cylinder under the piston, and for that end, was condensed in the cylinder itself, the piston being then forced down solely by atmospheric pressure. The cylinder was thus alternately warmed by the steam, and cooled by the admission of cold water, to condense it; and the necessary consequence of this process was a profuse expenditure both of heat and of the fuel which produced the steam.

It happened that Watt was employed, in the year 1763, to repair a small working model of Newcomen's steamengine, for Professor Anderson. He saw its defects, and studied how they might be remedied. He perceived the vast capabilities of an engine, moved by so powerful an agent as steam, if that agent could be properly applied. His scientific knowledge, as well as his mechanical ingenuity, was called forth. All the resources of his sagacious and philosophical mind were devoted to the task and, after years of patient labor and costly experiments, which nearly exhausted his means, he succeeded in removing every difficulty, and making the steam-engine the most valuable instrument, for the application of power, which the world has ever known.

Three great improvements which Watt made in the steam-engine, are thus briefly described :—1st, The condensation of the steam in a separate vessel; this increased the original powers of the engine, giving to the atmospheric pressure, and to the counter-weight, their full energy, while, at the same time, the waste of steam was greatly diminished. 2d, The employment of steam-pressure, instead of that of the atmosphere, by the admission of steam alternately above and below the piston; this accomplished a still further diminution of the waste, and was fertile in other advantages. The third improvement was the double impulse, which may be considered as the finishing touch given to the engine, whereby its action is rendered nearly as uniform as that of the water-wheel.

After Mr. Watt had thus perfected the steam-engine, so as to adapt its mechanism to the production of a rotative motion, and the working of machinery, it was some

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