Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/156



Next moves the iron band with fingers fine,

Combs the wide card, and forms th' eternal line;

Slow with soft lips the whirling can acquires

The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires;

With quicken'd pace successive rollers move,

And these retain, and those extend, the rove.

Then fly thespoles, the rapid axles glow;

While slowly circumvolves the lab'ring wheel below."

The building has one hundred and twenty windows in front, and is full of the improved machinery for making cotton thread, all of which is moved by two master-wheels. The weavers of Manchester and Nottingham take almost all the produce of the work. Adjoining to this, and adding to the bustle of the scene in this part of the vale, is a paper manufactory, belonging to Sir Richard Arkwright, employing about thirty people in making the brown, blue, and writing paper. Old ropes cut into small pieces, untwisted, and ground, form the material of which the first article is made; coarse cotton and white rags are used for the second. Here it is manufactured, pressed, separated, sized, dried, and packed; and the process is so rapidly performed, that two men can make ten reams in a day.

The pleasure-grounds of Sir Richard Arkwright now open to the left, round which the Derwcnt leads his waters in a grand sweep; the land assuming a different character from the precipitous form