And Several Addresses Were Presented to the King And

96 INTRODUCTORY REVIEW. and several addresses were presented to the king and parliament, " beseechin~ his majesty to take effectual measures to prevent the growth of the woollen manufactures in Ireland.,, ERA. OF INVENTION. THE' CoTToN EPocH. We come now to the period. of the "cotton revolution/' which, as Mr. Baines truly observes, "presents t · spectacle unparalleled in: the annals of industry, whether we regard the suddenness t>f its growth, the magnitude which it has attained, or the wonderful inventions to which its progress is to be ascribed. Within the memory of many now living, those machines have been brought into us~ which have made as great a revolution as the art of printing effected 1n litemture. Witl1in the same period, the cotton manufacture of this countlj has obtained a greater extent than the manufactures of woollen and linel'l combined, though these have existed for centuries." From the commence ment to the middle 'of the eighteenth century, an unprecedented activity i4 the domestic manufacture of both sheep and cotton wool presented itself. The age of mechanical improvemement now dawned upon the country, an the spirit of invention was quickened by an intelligent perception of prospe tive advantages, but the great obstacle in the way of advanceme~t was the want of a requisite supply of yarns to meet the increasing demand for manufac-. tured goods. To overcome this difficulty many clever and ingenious men directed their attention to the construction of machinery, intendeq to increase manufactured productions by mechanical skill. W yatt, of Birmingham, in 17 3(), was the inventor of the method of elongating cotton by rollers in the operation of spinning, but never had the means of bringing his invention jnto public notie& and estimation. In 1738, John Kay, of Bury, gave to the weaver's shuttle a mechanical impulse, which superseded the necessity of throwing it by hand and 1760 his son, Robert Kay, invented the drop box, by means1 which a weaver may use several coloured threads at one time in his shuttle. In 1767, Hagreaves completed a very important invention, which he called i Jenny, after the name of his daughter. This machine was admirably adapted to the spinning of weft yarn, requisite for the sh01-t warps spun by th~ water frame, invented by Thomas Highs. Highs was deprived of the benefit of his invention by Richard, afterwards Sir Ri.chard Arkright, whose name will ever be associated with the annals of Lancashire, and who, ;from an humble barber, became the most distinguished of all the early manufacturers by the aid of machinery. Arkright was a resident of Bolton, where profiting by the ingenuity of Highs and Hargreaves, he laid the foundation of his future cele~ 'brity and plincely fortune. Having developed the principle of Wyatt's in· vention, he constructed a machine called the water frame for spinning with rollers, and applied it most satisfactorily to the production of water twist, --which was used for warps, instead of linen yarn. In 1769 Arkright took out his first patent for spinning with rollers, and in the same year, Watt, the great improver of the steam engine and the « master magi cian of the age," took out his patent, and " called forth in perfect control the giant force of steam, which, ~n defiant and unbounded strength, had bafiled the skill of those who had hitherto endeavoured to subdue it without .

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