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multiplied many fold, but it still took an old coloured woman a whole day to thoroughly clean one pound of raw green seed cotton, while the best of hand-workers on ordinary cotton could only prepare five or six pounds a day. Eli Whitney, a young Yankee who was then studying law in the South, recognised the difficulties with which the planters had to deal, and, at the solicitation of some friends, set to work to construct a mechanical cotton cleaner. Previous to his graduation at Yale College, he had been employed in making nails by hand, and had become so skilled in handicraft that he was enabled to complete his "saw gin" within less than a year. As soon as it was put into practical working order, one man by its aid could clean upwards of a thousand pounds of cotton a day, and the producers, by the use of this machine, could supply the demands of the spinners. From the field to the shop counters, cotton now passes through a series of mechanical processes in which the labour of man is reduced to the minimum.

Sec. 4. The Steam-Engine.

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Power was wanted to turn new machines. While Hargreaves, Crompton, Arkwright, and others were busy contriving the new textile machinery, various inventors were wrestling with the problem of energy. Consequently, the wonderful revelation of the exhaustless labour-power of the steamengine came about the same time as the textile inventions. Though it is impossible here to give anything like an adequate account of the steam-engine in history and the mechanical principles involved, a few words will not be out of place. The expansive power of steam was known to the ancients, for more than a hundred years B.C. there was in the museum at Alexandria a model of a steam-engine working on the reaction principle

Though the theological and metaphysical bickerings which occupied the attention of the learned for so many long centuries overshadowed the wisdom of the ancients, "here and there in the pages of history we find a hint that the knowledge of the force of steam was not lost." The steam-engine began to take practical form in 1698 I when Thomas Savery patented his engine for pumping water from mines. This invention was subsequently improved, and new principles adopted by Newcomen, 2 Beighton, and Smeaton; but by reason of the enormous consumption of coal required by the crude apparatus, it could not be economically used in the factories.

Sec. 5.-James Watt. It is largely to James Watt that we owe the practical and comparatively economical steam-engine which revolutionised power in modern industry. This great inventive genius was born at Greenock in 1736. The failure of his father, who was a small merchant, threw James at an early age upon his own resources, and, having a turn for mechanics, he went to London, where he was apprenticed to one Morgan to learn philosophical instrument-making. He remained there only one year, and then returned to Scotland where he sought out his friends in Glasgow University, and secured a position as repairer of astronomical instruments. He afterwards tried to establish a shop of his own, but was prevented by the refusal of the city guilds to recognise him on account of his short apprenticeship. The University then took him up, and gave him a position as mathematical instrument-maker for the institution. It was while he occupied this position that he entered into a discussion with some of his friends in the University over the possibilities of improving the old, cumbersome steam-engine, which was then used at

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the mines. One Sunday afternoon in 1765, while walking in Glasgow Green, the idea of the nature of the improvement flashed across his mind. Hindered in his work by a lack of funds, he finally entered into partner- . ship with Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham, who had bought the interest of his former partner, Mr. Roebuck, In 1768 he settled in Birmingham, and for many years worked without ceasing on improvements on the steamengine, which he patented from time to time. In 1819 he passed quietly away, and was buried in the parish churchyard at Handsworth. His life and work are an inspiration to all who believe that man, by attention, observation, and experiment, can solve the problems which everywhere confront him. By 1786 steam power was coming into use, but it was not until 1795 that it was applied to cotton manufacturing. Since that time it has been used to turn the countless wheels of the factories, and, though in modern times it has found many sharp competitors, the tireless iron horse bids fair to hold its own for many years.

Sec. 6. The Iron Trade. The importance of iron in the development of industry and the extension of the powers of man can scarcely be over-estimated. Its qualities of durability, malleability, and strength, and the manifold uses to which it can be adapted, make iron an indispensable factor in the evolution of mechanical production. Though it had been used by man for ages, there had been comparatively little advancement in iron working, for the methods of preparation were extremely crude at the beginning of the eighteenth century. However, the demand for iron, which sprang up when machines began to supersede the implements of handicraft, and the steamengine came into general use, led to the concentration

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of attention on improvements in the methods of iron working. In early times the industry was located chiefly in the South of England, but by the middle of the eighteenth century Coalbrookdale became an important centre. The difficulty of procuring fuel prevented any extensive development, because wood was considered necessary to the smelting processes. About 2 1750 the process of smelting by coal became effective, and at once led to a rapid advancement of the industry. The primitive method of supplying the blast by huge 3 bellows worked in pairs by hand, water, or horse power, was superseded in 1760 by Smeaton's cylinder blowing apparatus which, notwithstanding the irregularity of the blast it furnished, soon came into general use. The advantage of a steady and continued blast was secured in 1790, when the steam-engine was adopted as the motive power. Between 1766 and 1784 great advance was made in the methods of working malleable iron, and of changing cast into wrought iron; grooved rolling supplanted hammering in 1783; this improvement was followed by the invention of the puddling forge. In 1828, James Neilson, an employé of the Glasgow Gas Works, discovered the advantage to be gained by substituting hot for cold air in the blast. Though treated as presumptuous by the practical iron manufacturers, he soon demonstrated the efficacy of his process by saving nearly three tons of coal per ton of cast iron. The steam hammer was invented in 1842; in 1865 the Bessemer-Mushet process made it possible to transform into steel molten metal direct from the furnace. The Siemens fuel-saving regenerative furnace and gas producer, the use of machinery in the place of hand labour in puddling and handling heavy castings, the

utilisation of electricity in drawing iron from the crushed ore, and innumerable other minor improvements have come in rapid succession, adding greatly to the development of the iron industry, and revolutionising the methods of preparing the material necessary for the progress of mechanical invention. Enormous quantities of steel for harnessing the limitless drawing forces of Nature can now be made with comparative ease.

Sec. 7.-Shoemaking, Tailoring, and Farming. In olden times the shoemaker bought his leather, cut out and shaped by hand the various parts of the shoe, sewed, and nailed them together with the aid of a few simple tools. Early in this century inventors turned their attention to this important industry, and by mechanical appliances completely revolutionised it. " Simple machine processes for fastening soles and heels to inner soles began to be adopted in 1809; and from that time onward successive inventions have converted the pure handicraft into one of the most mechanical industries in the world. In the United States, in 1881, no less than 50,000,000 pairs of boots and shoes were sewn by the Blake-Mackay machines. A visitor to a shoe factory to-day will see the following machines: for cutting leather, for pressing rollers for sole leather, for stamping out sole and heel pieces, for blocking and crimping, for moulding uppers or vamps, for vamp folding, for eyeletting, lasting, trimming, paring, sandpapering and burnishing, for stamping, peg cutting, and nail rasping." In a well-equipped clothing factory one will see at work machines for cutting out, sewing together, working and cutting buttonholes, sewing on buttons, and pressing. The sickle, scythe, cradle, and hand rake have gone from the harvest fields, while the

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