JAMES HARGREAVES,

THE INVENTOR OF THE SPINNING JENNY.

THIS individual was a weaver at Stand Hill, near Blackburn hough illiterate and humble, he must be regarded as one of the great inventors and improvers of the cotton manufacture. His principal invention, and one which showed high mechanical genius, was the spinning jenny;—a machine, as tradition affirms, which owed its title to a fair damsel by the name of Jane.

The date of this invention was some years before Arkwright obtained the patent for his water frame; and differs so completely from that machine, that there can be no suspicion of its being other than a perfectly original invention.

It may be necessary to explain to some readers, that the cotton was formerly, and is still, reduced from the state of the fleecy roll called a carding, into the state of spun thread, by repeated, though similar operations; the first draws out the carding, and gives it a very slight twist, so as to make it into a loose thread, about the thickness of a candle-wick, in which state it is called a roving or slubbin; the subsequent processes draw out the roving much finer, and at length reduce it into yarn.

The jenny, like Arkwright's machine, was intended to spin the roving into yarn; but, unlike Arkwright's, was incapable of being applied to the preparation of the roving itself.

Hargreaves is said to have received the original idea of his machine from secing a one-thread wheel overturned upon the floor when both the wheel and spindle continued to revolve. The spindle was thus thrown from a horizontal into an upright position; and the thought seems to have struck him, that if a number of spindles were placed upright, and side by side, several threads might be spun at once. He contrived a frame, in one part of which he placed eight rovings in a row, and in another part a row of eight spindles. The rovings, when extended to the spindles, passed between two horizontal bars of wood forming a clasp, which opened and shut somewhat like a parallel ruler; when pressed together, this clasp held the threads fast. A certain portion of roving being extended from the spindles to the wooden clasp, the clasp was closed, and was then drawn along the horizontal frame to a considerable distance from the spindles, by which the threads were lengthened out, and reduced to the proper tenuity; this was done

with the spinner's left hand, and his right hand, at the same time, turned a wheel, which caused the spindles to revolve rapidly, and thus the roving was spun into yarn. By returning the clasp to its first situation, and letting down a presser wire, the yarn was wound upon the spindle.

With this admirable machine, though at first rudely constructed, Hargreaves and his family spun weft for his own weaving. Aware of the value of the invention, but not extending his ambition to a patent, he kept it as secret as possible for a time, and used it merely in his own business. A machine of such powers could not, however, be long concealed; but when it became the subject of rumor, instead of gaining for its author admiration and gratitude, the spinners raised an outcry that it would throw multitudes out of employment, and a mob broke into Hargreave's house, and destroyed his jenny. So great was the persecution he suffered, and the danger in which he was placed, that this victim of popular ignorance was compelled to flee, as the inventor of the fly-shuttle had before him. Thus the neighborhood where the machine was invented lost the benefit of it, yet without preventing its general adoption; the common and appropriate punishment of the ignorance and selfishness which oppose mechanical improvements.

Hargreaves retired to Nottingham in 1768, where he entered into partnership with Mr. Thomas James, a joiner, who raised sufficient money to enable them to erect a small mill. He took out a patent for the jenny in 1770, the year after Arkwright had taken out his. The patent was "for a method of making a wheel or an engine of an entire new construction, and never before made use of, in order for spinning, drawing, and twisting of cotton, and to be managed by one person only; and that the wheel or engine will spin, draw, and twist sixteen or more threads at one time, by a turn or motion of one hand and a draw of the other."

The following is the inventor's description of the process:"One person, with his or her right hand, turns the wheel, and with the left hand takes hold of the clasps, and therewith draws out the cotton from the slubbin box; and being twisted by the turn of the wheel in the drawing out, then a piece of wood is lifted by the toe, which lets down a presser wire, so as to press the threads so drawn out and twisted, in order to wind or put the same regularly upon bobbins which are placed on the spindles." The number of spindles in the jenny was at first eight; when the patent was ob tained it was sixteen; it soon came to be twenty or thirty; and no less than one hundred and twenty have since been used.

Before quitting Lancashire, Hargreaves had made a few jennies for sale; and the importance of the invention being universa

appreciated, the interests of the manufacturers and weavers brought it into general use, in spite of all opposition. A desperate effort, though, was made in 1779-probably in a period of temporary distress-to put down the machine. A mob rose and scoured the country for several miles around Blackburn, demolishing the jennies, and with them all the carding engines, water frames, and every machine turned by water or horses. It is said the rioters spared the jennies which had only twenty spindles, as these were by this time admitted to be useful, but those with a greater num ber, being considered mischievous, were destroyed, or cut down to the prescribed dimensions.

It may seem strange that not merely the working classes, but even the middle and higher ranks of people, entertained a great dread of machinery. Not perceiving the tendency of any inven tion which improved and cheapened the manufacture, to cause an extended demand for its products, and thereby to give employment to more hands than it superseded, those classes were alarmed lest the poor rates should be burdened with workmen thrown idle. They therefore connived at, and even actually joined in the opposition to the machinery, and did all in their power to screen the rioters from punishment.

This devastating outrage left effects more permanent than have usually resulted from such com.notions. Spinners and other capitalists were driven from the neighborhood of Blackburn to Manchester and other places, and in consequence it was many years before cotton spinning was resumed at Blackburn.

Hargreaves went to Nottingham in 1768, and worked for a while in the employment of Mr. Shipley, for whom he secretly made some jennies in his dwelling. He was induced, by the offers of Mr. Thomas James, to enter into partnership with him; and the latter raised sufficient money, on mortgage and loan, to build a small mill in Hockley, where they spun yarn for the hosiers with the jenny. The patent was obtained in 1770.

Finding that several of the Lancashire manufacturers were using the jenny, Hargreaves gave notice of actions against them: the manufacturers met, and sent a delegate to Nottingham, who offered Hargreaves three thousand pounds for permission to use the machine; but he at first demanded seven thousand, and at last stood out for four thousand. The negotiation being broken off, the actions proceeded; but before they came to trial, Hargreaves' attorney was informed that his client, before leaving Lancashire, had sold some jennies to obtain clothing for his children, of whom he had six or seven. In consequence, the attorney gave up the actions, in despair of obtaining a verdict.

The spinning business was carried on by the partners with mo derate success, till the death of Mr. Hargreaves, which took place at his own house, near the mill, in April, 1778. In his will he directed a guinea to be given to the vicar for preaching his funeral His widow received four hundred pounds from Mr. James, for her husband's share in the business.

sermon.

It is a consolation to the admirers of genius to know, that this benefactor to his country was enabled to live in comfort, though not in affluence, on the fruits of his invention.

JOSEPH BRAMAH,

THE INVENTOR OF THE HYDROSTATIC PRESS.

JOSEPH BRAMAH, one of the greatest mechanics England has ever produced, was the oldest son of a small farmer, and was born on the 13th of April, 1749, at Stainsborough, in Yorkshire. He exhibited at a very early age an unusual talent for mechanical contrivances, and succeeded, when quite a boy, in making two violoncellos, which were found to be very tolerable instruments. His hours of relaxation from the business of the farm were generally spent in a neighboring blacksmith-shop, between whose tenant and himself was shared the merit of several ingenious pieces of mechanism.

An accidental lameness in his ankles unfitting him for agricul. tural labor, he was apprenticed in his sixteenth year to a carpenter and joiner. At the expiration of his "time," he went to London in search of employment, where, by his industry and exertions, he soon became a master. His now extended means enabled him to indulge his mechanical taste, and he quickly became known as a man possessing a fine invention as well as great executive skill. In 1784, he produced the admirable lock which bears his name, and which was considered the most perfect mechanism of its kind that had ever been produced, and even to this day is scarcely rivalled for safety, durability, elegance, and simplicity. The peculiar character of this lock depends on the arrangement of a number of levers, or sliders, to preserve, when at rest, a uniform situation, and to be only pressed down by the key to a certain depth, which nothing but the key can ascertain,-the levers not having any stop to retain them in their required situation, except

He added afterwards some

that which forms part of the key. modifications, for allowing the key to be varied at pleasure. The report that one of these locks had been readily opened before a committee of the House of Coramons, by means of a common quill, was a gross misrepresentation of the fact; the quill having, in reality, been previously cut into the required shape from the true key. An experiment which was only made to show the perfection of the workmanship, and the very small force requisite to overcome the resistance when properly applied. It has been stated that one of these locks, after having been in use many years, and opened and locked not less than four hundred thousand times, was apparently as perfect as when first constructed. The invention for which he will probably be best known to posterity, is his hydrostatic press, which is described in the succeeding paragraph:

The principle of this machine is this: if a given pressure, as that given by a plug forced inwards upon a square inch of the surface of a fluid confined in a vessel, is suddenly communicated to every square inch of the vessel's surface, however large, and to every inch of the surface of any body immersed in it,-thus if we attempt to force a cork into a vessel full of water,-the pressure will not merely be felt by the portion of the water directly in the range of the cork, but by all parts of the mass alike; and the liability of the bottle to break, supposing it to be of uniform strength throughout, will be as great in one place as another. And a bottle will break at the point wherever it is the weakest, however that point may be situated relatively to the place where the cork is applied; and the effect will be the same whether the stopper be inserted at the top, bottom, or side of the vessel. It is this power which operates with such astonishing effect in the Hydrostatic Press. The annexed engraving represents a press inade of the strongest timbers, the foundation of which is com

monly laid in solid masonry. A B is a small cylinder, in which moves the piston of a forcing pump, and C D is a large cylinder,