Ingenuity and Luxury

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Goodhue, 1912 - Civilization - 336 pages

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Page 49 - The closing years of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the nineteenth saw an army of inventors in the field improving the power-loom.
Page 45 - Now you will not assert, gentlemen, said I, that it is more difficult to construct a machine that shall weave, than one which shall make all the variety of moves which are required in that complicated game...
Page 29 - ... marriage, because she, convinced that he would starve his family by scheming when he should have been shaving, broke some of his experimental models of machinery. Arkwright was a severe economist of time; and, that he might not waste a moment, he generally travelled with four horses, and at a very rapid speed. His concerns in Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Scotland, were so extensive and numerous as to show at once his astonishing power of transacting business, and his all-grasping spirit.
Page 45 - One of the company observed, that, as soon as Arkwright's patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, that hands would never be found to weave it.
Page 29 - The most marked traits in the character of Arkwright were his wonderful ardour, energy, and perseverance. He commonly laboured in his multifarious concerns, from five o'clock in the morning till nine at night ; and when considerably more than fifty years of age, — feeling that the defects of his education placed him under great difficulty and inconvenience in conducting his correspondence, and in the general management of his business, — he encroached upon his sleep, in order to gain an hour...
Page 24 - One person, with his or her right hand turns the wheel, and with the left hand takes hold of the clasps, and therewith draws out the cotton from the slubbing-box; and, being twisted by the turn of the wheel in the drawing out, then a piece of wood is lifted up by the toe, which lets down a presser-wire, so as to press the threads so drawn out and twisted, in order to wind or put the same regularly upon the bobbins which are placed on the spindles.
Page 45 - This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable ; and, in defence of their opinion, they adduced arguments which I certainly was incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject, having never at that time seen a person weave.
Page 46 - Some little time afterwards a particular circumstance recalling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that, as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had of the business, there could...
Page 46 - In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time.
Page 46 - The warp was placed perpendicularly, the reed fell with the weight of at least half a hundred weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work...

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