When we contrast the splendid inventions connected | with the cotton manufacture, which from this period burst forth in rapid succession, with the passive acquiescence in the use of imperfect machinery during the long period which preceded, we are apt to ascribe these improvements to the circumstance alone of a number of men of genius having at that moment arisen, and to forget that the ultimate cause existed in the times calling their energies into action. Already, about the year 1750, the fly-shuttle had been invented by Kaye of Bury-one of the most important steps in the progress of the art of weaving; and in the year 1760 improvements had begun to be made in the carding. process. cards, or carding engine. It is not ascertained who was the inventor of this valuable machine, but it is known that the father of the late Sir Robert Peel was among the first who used it, aud that, so early as 1762, he, with the assistance of Hargreaves, erected a carding engine with cylinders at Blackburn. This machine did not differ materially from that now in use, except that it had no contrivance for detaching the cotton from the cards, an operation which was performed by women with hand cards. There had been several unsuccessful attempts to improve the mode of spinning before 1767, when Hargreaves invented the "Spinning Jenny," patented in 1770. The idea of this machine is said to have been suggested to him by seeing a common spinning wheel, which had been accidentally overturned, continue its motion while it lay ou the ground. After several unsuccessful attempts to carry into execution the conception he had formed, he succeeded in producing a rudely-constructed "jenny" of eight spindles, turned by bands from a horizontal wheel. In it the eight rovings were passed between two pieces of wood laid horizontally the breadth of the machine; and these, being grasped in the spinner's hand, and drawn out by him, formed the rovings into threads. The structure of this This contrivance was soon succeeded by the cylinder | jenny was soon afterwards greatly improved, and it was James Hargreaves, a weaver at Stanhill, near Church, in Lancashire, an illiterate man, possessed of no great mechanical knowledge, had adapted the stock cards used in the woollen manufacture to the carding of cotton, and had besides greatly improved them. By his invention a person was able to do double the work, and with more ease than by hand carding. In the stock cards, one of the cards is fixed, whilst the other, being suspended by a cord over a pulley, is worked by the carder; and in this way two or three cards can be applied to the same stock. FIG. 2.-Opener. at last brought to work as many as eighty spindles. This machine, although of limited powers when compared with the beautiful inventions which succeeded it, must be considered as the first and leading step in that progress of discovery which carried improvement into every branch of the manufacture. The jenny of Hargreaves was very similar in its mode of working to the present "hand twiner" or mule-doubler, the spindles being mounted on a stationary carriage, and the "slide," or lock, receding from the spindles during the twisting of the threads, and returning to the spindle again during the winding on of the yarn. These hand twiners are being rapidly replaced by selfacting twiners; but the type of Hargreaves's remains substantially the same as at first. His principle of drawing the fibre is still in universal use for carded wool. Hargreaves's invention occasioned great alarm among those who earned their subsistence by the old mode of spinning, and even produced popular commotion. A mob broke into his house and destroyed his machine; and some time after, when a better knowledge of its advantages had begun to bring his spinning jenny into general use, the people rose a second time, and, scouring the country, broke to pieces every carding and spinning machine they could find. The jenny in a short time put an end to the spinning of cotton by the common wheel; and the whole wefts used in the manufacture continued to be spun upon that machine, until the invention of the "mule jenny," by which it was in its turn superseded. While Hargreaves was producing the common jenny, Arkwright was employed in contriving that wonderful piece of mechanism, the spinning frame, called first the waterframe, and afterwards the throstle, which, when put into motion, performs of itself the whole process of spinning, leaving to the workmen only the office of supplying the roving or prepared material, and of joining or piecing the thread when it breaks. See ARKWRIGHT, vol. ii. p. 540. On Arkwright's removal to Nottingham .he obtained from Messrs Wrights, bankers there, and afterwards from Mr Need of Nottingham and Strutt of Derby the assistance necessary to enable him to perfect his inventions and turn them to advantage, and in the year 1769 he obtained his patent for spinning with rollers. In 1772 his patent was contested, but a verdict was given in his favour, and his right to the exclusive use of the discovery remained afterwards undisturbed. Soon after his removal to Cromford, he followed up his first great discovery with other inventions for preparing the cotton for spinning, for which he took out another patent in the year 1775. But in 1781 COTTON his right to this patent was disputed; and judgment was finally given against him in November 1785, and the patent cancelled. Arkwright's inventions for preparing the cotton, which are sometimes spoken of as the most wonderful parts of the process of spinning, do not appear so striking as the first effort of his genius. Although only to have been conceived by an original and fertile mind, they are still but improved arrangements of a machine previously in use, or suitable adaptations of his own spinning machine. But 491 the power of Arkwright's mind was perhaps marked by nothing more strongly than the judgment with which, although new to business, he conducted the great concerns to which his discovery gave rise, and the systematic order and arrangement which he introduced into every department of his extensive works. His plans of management were universally adopted by others; and after long experience, they have not yet in any material point been improved. Machinery. FIG. 3.-Three-cylinder Opener, Beater, and Lap Machine The principal machines used in cotton spinning, taking hem in the order in which they are employed, are the ollowing:-The opener, scutcher and lap machine, cardng engine, combing machine, drawing frame, slubbing rame, intermediate frame, and roving frame; the throstle, he self-acting mule and hand n ile, doubling frame, and nul doublers or twiners. The first two are employed in the process of cleaning the raw cotton, and separating its matted flocks. In the lap machine it is fashioned into flat folds; in the carding machine it is carded and further cleaned and the fibres straightened; and in the drawing frame it is formed into a loose rope the fibres of which are laid parallel. In the slubbing frame it is slightly twisted; and in the intermediate and finishing frames it is still farther twisted, particularly in the higher numbers; but it is not yet yarn. The throstle frame is chiefly used FIG. 4.-Single Scutcher and Lap Machine. for coarse warps; whilst upon the self-acting and hand mules both coarse and fine yarns are spun. The OPENER.-In this machine the raw cotton is spread uniformly on a feeding table; from this it is taken by a pair of feeding rollers, and by them subjected to the action of a beater. The beater consists of a cylinder bearing at intervals four or six rows of projecting teeth. It is 18 inches in diameter over the teeth, with an average of 40 inches in width, and when in motion makes 1400 revolutions in a minute. By an ingenious contrivance a strong draught of air is made to play through the newly-opened cotton, carrying away the dust and other foreign particles which adhere to it. This machine is capable of opening up about 15,000 b of cotton in 56 hou.s. The cotton is carried forward between two perforated zinc or wire cylinders connected with the draught, the cotton being taken from another pair of feed rollers and a beater with two or three blades, and from this beater the cotton passes through a second pair of perforated cylinders, from which it is taken off by a pair of rollers and delivered to calende rollers, and formed into laps for the scutcher. Various kinds of openers have been patented which differ in some FIG. 5.-Self-stripping Flat Carding Machine. from places situated at long distances from the blowing up 25,000 b per week of 56 hours. In this machine an room, and claims among other advantages that it will open ingenious contrivance presents the cotton to the cylinder by FIG. 6.-Roller and Clearer Carding Machine. one roller working in a trough formed by a series of weighted levers. These reduce the risk of breaking the fibre, and at the same time by moving a horizontal bar con nected with a pair of cones acting upon the feed ruller sa |