Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/522

Rh 490 COTTON When we contrast tho 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 17GO improvements had begun to be made in the carding process. 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. This contrivance was soon succeeded by the cylinder 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, and 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 cun- trivance for detaching the cotton from the cards, an opera tion which was performed by women with hand cards. There had been several unsuccessful attempts to improve Spim the mode of spinning before 1767, when Hargreaves in- je vented the &quot;Spinning Jenny,&quot; 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 on the ground. After several unsuccessful attempts to carry into execution the conception he had formed, he succeeded in producing a rudely-constructed &quot;jenny&quot; 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 jenny was soon afterwards greatly improved, and it was Fro. 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 con sidered 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 &quot; hand twiner or mule-doubler, the spindles being mounted on a stationary carriage, and the &quot;slide,&quot; 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 self- acting twiners; but the type of Hargreaves s remains sub stantially 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 &quot;mule jenny,&quot; by which it was in its turn superseded. While Hargreaves was producing the common jenny, Ark- Arkwright was employed in contriving that wonderful piece wig 11 of mechanism, the spinning frame, called first the water- mven frame, 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 ARKWPJGHT, vol. ii. p. 540. On Ark wright 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 after wards undisturbed. Soon after his removal to Cromford, he followed up his first great discovery with other inven tions for preparing the cotton for spinning, for which he took out another patent in the year 1775. But in 1781