A Treatise on the Origin, Progressive Improvement and Present State of the Silk Manufacture

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NOTES
255
INDEX
267

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Page 187 - The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations...
Page 210 - Happening to be at Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with some gentlemen of Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright's spinning machinery. 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 never could be found to weave it.
Page 211 - 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 211 - The warp was placed perpendicularly, the reed fell with a force of at least half an 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 the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time.
Page 211 - ... be little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of these ideas, I immediately employed a carpenter and smith to carry them into effect. As soon as the machine was finished, I got a weaver to put in the warp, which was of such materials as sailcloth is usually made of. To my great delight, a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the produce.
Page 273 - Without fully detailing the method, a few of these advantages may be mentioned. Each volume will contain one or more subjects uninterrupted and unbroken, and will be accompanied by the corresponding plates or other appropriate illustrations. Facility of reference will be obtained without fettering the work by a continued alphabetical arrangement. A subscriber may omit particular volumes or sets of volumes, without disintegrating his series. Thus each purchaser may form from the ''CABINET" a Cyclopaedia,...
Page 274 - CYCLOPEDIA." will, it is hoped, be found an object of paramount interest in every family. To the heads of schools and all places of public education the proprietors trust that this work will particularly recommend itself. It seems scarcely necessary to add," that nothing will be admitted into the pax^s of the " CABINET CYCLOPEDIA" which can have the most remote tendency to offend public or private morals.
Page 17 - Amidst their pious occupations, they viewed with a curious eye the common dress of the Chinese, the manufactures of silk, and the myriads of silk-worms, whose education (either on trees or in houses) had once been considered as the labour of queens.
Page 211 - Congreve rocket. In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time. Conceiving, in my great simplicity, that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most valuable property, by a patent, 4th April, 1785.
Page 89 - One author thus writes:—"There is scarcely any thing among the various wonders which the animal creation affords, more admirable than the variety of changes which the silk-worm undergoes; but the curious texture of that silken covering with which it surrounds itself, when it arrives at the perfection of its animal life, vastly surpasses what is made by other animals of this class. All the caterpillar kind do indeed undergo changes like those of the silk-worm, and the beauty of...

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