pened in the case of many other ingenious men, was an attempt to discover the perpetual motion. It was in inquiring after a person to make him some wheels for a project of this kind, that in the latter part of the year 1767, he got acquainted with a clockmaker of the name of Kay, then residing at Warrington, with whom it is certain that he remained for a considerable time after closely connected. From this moment we may date his entrance upon a new career. The manufacture of cotton cloths was introduced into Great Britain only towards the end of the seventeenth century; although stuffs, improperly called Manchester cottons, had been fabricated nearly three centuries before, which, however, were made entirely of wool. It is generally thought that the first attempt at the manufacture of cotton goods in Europe did not take place till the end of the fifteenth century, when the art was introduced into Italy. Before this, the only cottons known had been imported from the East Indies. The English cottons, for many years after the introduction of the manufacture, had only the weft of cotton; the warp, or longitudinal threads of the cloth, being of linen. It was conceived to be impracticable to spin the cotton with a sufficiently hard twist to make it serviceable for this latter purpose. Although occasionally exported, too, in small quantities, the manufactured goods were chiefly consumed at home. It was not till about the year 1760 that any considerable demand for them arose abroad. But about this time the exportation of cottons, both to the continent and to America, began to be carried on on a larger scale, and the manufacture of course received a corresponding impulse. The thread had hitherto been spun entirely, as it still continues to be in India, by the tedious process of the distaff and spindle, the spinner drawing out only a single thread at a time. But as the demand for the manufactured article continued to increase, a greater and greater scarcity of weft was experienced, till, at last, although there were 50,000 spindles constantly at work in Lancashire alone, each occupying an individual spinner, they were found quite insufficient to supply the quantity of thread required. The weavers generally, in those days, had the weft they used spun for them by the females of their family; and now "those weavers," says Mr. Guest, in his History of the Cotton Manufacture, "whose families could not furnish the necessary supply of weft, had their spinning done by their neighbors, and were obliged to pay more for the spinning than the price allowed by their masters; and even with this disadvantage, very few could procure weft enough to keep themselves constantly employed. It was no uncommon thing for a weaver to walk three or four miles in a morning, and call on five or six spinners, before he could collect weft to serve him for the remainder of the day and when he wished to weave a piece in a shorter time than usual, a new ribband or gown was necessary to quicken the exertions of the spinner." It was natural in this state of things, that attempts should be made to contrive some method of spinning more effective than that which had hitherto been in use; and, in fact, several ingenious individuals seem to have turned their attention to the subject. Long before this time, indeed, spinning by machinery had been thought of by more than one speculator. Mr. Wyatt, of Litchfield, is stated to have actually invented an apparatus for that purpose so early as the year 1733, and to have had factories built and filled with his machines, both at Birmingham and Northampton. These undertakings, however, not being successful, the machines were allowed to perish, and no model or description of them was preserved. There was also Mr. Laurence Earnshaw, of Mottram, in Cheshire, of whom "it is recorded that, in the year 1753, he invented a machine to spin and reel cotton at one operation, which he showed to his neighbors, and then destroyed it, through the generous appre hension that he might deprive the poor of bread," a mistake, but a benevolent one. From the year 1767, it appears that Arkwright gave himself up completely to the subject of inventions for spinning cotton. In the following year, he began constructing his first machine at Preston, in the dwelling-house attached to the free grammar-school there. At this time, Arkwright's poverty was such, that being " a burgess of Preston," he could not appear to vote during a contested election till the party with whom he voted gave him a decent suit of clothes. Shortly after, apprehensive of meeting with hostility from one Hargrave, a carpenter at Blackburn, who had just invented the spinning-jenny,* Arkwright left Lancashire, and went to Nottingham. Here, after some disappointment of resources, he arranged with Messrs. Need and Jedediah Strutt, of Derby, the latter the ingenious improver and patentee of the stocking-frame; † and, with such aid, Arkwright resumed his experimental labors. He consulted Mr. Strutt upon the matter; and it is a remarkable fact, strongly corroborative of Arkwright's claim to be the original inventor, (which was subsequently disputed,) that although Mr. Strutt saw and acknowledged the great merit of the invention, he pointed out various deficiencies, which the inventor, from the want of me * The jenny gave the means of spinning twenty or thirty threads at once, with no more labor than had previously been required to spin a single thread. + Mr. Strutt was the first individual who succeeded in adapting the stocking. frame to the manufacture of ribbed stockings. chanical skill, had been unable to supply. These defects were easily remedied by Mr. Strutt; and in the year 1769, Arkwright obtained his first patent for spinning with rollers, Messrs. Need and Strutt becoming his partners in the manufacturing concerns which it was proposed to carry on under it. The improvement for which this patent was obtained, or the spinning-frame, spins a vast number of threads of any degree of fineness and hardness, leaving man merely to feed the machine with cotton, and to join the threads when they happen to break. The principle on which this machine is constructed, and its mode of operation, will be easily understood. It consists of two pairs of rollers turned by machinery. The lower roller of each pair is furrowed or fluted longitudinally, and the upper one is covered with leather, by which means the two have a sufficient hold upon the cotton passed between them. The cotton, when passed through the first pair of rollers, has the form of a thick but very soft cord, which is slightly pressed: but no sooner has the cotton carding, or roving, as it is technically called, begun to pass through the first pair of rollers, than it is received by the second pair, which are made to revolve with (as the case may be) twice, thrice, or ten times the velocity of the first pair, so that the cotton is necessarily drawn out twice, thrice, or ten times smaller than when delivered from the first rollers. It is obvious that the principle of the spinning-frame is radically different from the previous methods of spinning, either by the common hand-wheel or distaff, or by the jenny, which is only a modification of the common wheel. Spinning by rollers was entirely an original idea, according to Arkwright, suggested to him by seeing a red-hot iron bar elongated by being made to pass between two rollers; and though there is no mechanical analogy between that operation and the process of spinning, it is not difficult to imagine that, by reflecting upon it, and placing the subject in dif. ferent points of view, it might lead him to his invention. The first mill erected for spinning cotton by this method was at Nottingham, and was worked by horse-power; but, in 1771, another mill was built at Cromford, in the parish of Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, to which motion was given by water; from this circumstance the machine was called the water-frame, and the thread received the name of water-twist. Previous to this time, no establishment of a similar nature had existed, none, at least, to which the same system of management was applicable; and it strongly marks the judgment and mental powers of Arkwright, that although the details of manufacturing or commercial business were altogether new to him, he at once |