ed capacity of working it off, could never have been met except by the invention of a machine like that of Whitney, already referred to, for cleaning the raw article with expedition, and thus preparing it for market. The inventions of the English gave them the monopoly of the manufacture, and were guarded with most scrupulous care, lest they should reach other countries. The first machines for carding, roving, and spinning, made in the United States, were the work of 2 mechanics from Scotland, Alexander and Robert Barr, employed by Mr. Orr of East Bridgewater, Mass. The state made a grant in 1786 of £200 lawful money for the encouragement of the enterprise. The Beverly company in the same state commenced operations in 1787, and after expending £4,000, obtained in 1790 a grant of £1,000 from the legislature, by the aid of which they succeeded in introducing the manufacture of cotton goods, but with very imperfect machinery. In 1788 a company was formed in Providence, R. I., for making "home-spun cloth;" and they constructed their machinery from the best drawings to be obtained of the English models and plans, which were afforded them by Mr. Orr and the Beverly company. The carding and roving with these machines was effected in a very imperfect and slow manner by hand labor; the spinning frame with 32 spindles differed little from a common jenny, and was worked at first by a crank turned by hand. The machinery was sold to Mr. Moses Brown of Providence, who, together with Mr. Almy, had several hand jennies employed in private houses in Providence making yarns for the weft of mixed linen and cotton goods. Such operations could accomplish little in competition with the Arkwright machinery; and all attempts to procure plans of this failed. In Nov. 1789, there arrived in New York a young man just 21 years of age, who had spent about 7 years in the cotton mills in Derbyshire, England, in various capacities up to that of general superintendent. He had qual ified himself for the express purpose of removing to this country, and establishing the cotton manufacture by Arkwright's processes, even without the use of plans, which could not be passed through the custom house in England. To this man, Mr. Samuel Slater, the country is indebted for the introduction of the means of successfully conducting this manufacture. He repaired to Providence in January of the next year, and immediately formed an engagement with Messrs. Almy and Brown to construct the improved machinery. In Dec. 1790, the first Arkwright machinery was set in operation, consist ing of 3 cards, drawing and roving, and a frame of 72 spindles, worked by a water wheel of an old fulling mill. By this machinery a large stock of yarns was accumulated in less than 2 years, beside what could be woven and disposed of. In 14 months from the time they began to work, Mr. Brown advised the secretary of the treasury that machinery and mills could now be erected in one year of capacity to

supply the whole country with yarn, and render further importation unnecessary. A new mill of small size was built in 1793 by Messrs. Almy, Brown, and Slater, at Pawtucket, which commenced with 72 spindles, and was afterward considerably enlarged. It is still known as the "old factory." Mr. Slater must have failed for want of experienced workmen in constructing his machinery, particularly the cards, if he had not himself been thoroughly competent to do all the varieties of the work. From this beginning other mills were added in Pawtucket by the same parties and others also, with whom Mr. Slater associated himself; and the hands employed carried the processes to Cumberland, R. I., where another factory was built in 1798. In 1806 Mr. Slater was joined by his brother, John Slater, from England; and soon after the village of Slatersville, R. I., was projected, a place which has since continued to prosper like many others in New England established at later periods for the purpose of prosecuting the same branch of industry. By a report made to congress in 1816, it appears that the business had increased from the consumption of 500 bales of 300 lbs. each in 1800, to 10,000 in 1810, and 90,000 in 1815; that 81,000,000 yards of cotton cloth, costing $24,000,000, were then manufactured, about 100,000 operatives, men, women, and children, were employed, and an aggregate capital of $40,000,000 was invested in the business. The importations of foreign cottons of 1815 and 1816, amounting, notwithstanding this home production, to the value of about $180,000,000, greatly checked the progress of the American manufacture; but this was subsequently encouraged by the tariff acts of 1824, 1828, and 1832, which imposed an ad valorem duty of 25 per cent. upon imported cotton goods. Up to the year 1813 the mills that had been put in operation were designed only for spinning; and the twist was sold to the weavers, who made use of hand looms to convert it into cloth. In England also, though the power loom, the remarkable invention of a clergyman unskilled in mechanics, was in use, its employment was in establishments distinct from those in which the cotton was spun into yarn. The construction of this loom was unknown in the United States, and it was impossible to obtain any plan of it. In 1812 Mr. Francis C. Lowell, of Boston, lately returned from England and Scotland, determined to introduce the weaving of the cloth in this country; and in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Mr. Patrick T. Jackson, set about the invention of a power loom. After numerous attempts, they succeeded in producing in the autumn of 1812 a satisfactory model, and procuring the services of the skilful mechanic, Mr. Paul Moody, afterward well known as the head of the machine shop at Lowell, they decided upon building a mill to work it. Finding it would be more profitable to combine the operation of spinning with the weaving, they built at Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1813, a factory for about

1,700 spindles, and furnished it with looms also for weaving. This factory, still in operation, was probably the first in the world that combined all the processes necessary for converting the raw cotton into finished cloth. The first cotton mill in Lowell was erected in 1822. Thirty years afterward 12 manufacturing companies were in operation there, whose mills, amounting to 51 in number, extended in a continuous line of about a mile from the Merrimack to the Pawtucket falls, and gave employment to 12,633 operatives. Though but a small portion of the cotton crop was received in New England, the northern states derived more benefit from it, as shown by increased wealth and population, than the whole crop afforded to the states in which it was raised. The commerce growing out of the crop also supported large fleets of ships, which were owned principally in the northern states and in Europe. Thus has this product served to link together the interests of different sections, and becoming in this period of its paramount importance a bond of union between states and nations, it has been of greater benefit to mankind than can be computed by any estimates of the financial prosperity it has created. Other interests may arise to lessen its relative importance, but in the history of the first half at least of the 19th century, cotton will ever be referred to as the principal agent in extending the growth and prosperity of England and America. The following table presents the progress made in the New England states in this manufacture up to the years 1840 and 1850:

In 1850 the consumption of bales was estimated at 107,500. The actual quantity consumed cannot be correctly stated. The number corresponding to the capacity of the spindles, allowing North Carolina 50,000, should be, at the rate of 4,500 bales to 10,000 spindles, about 129,000 bales.-The operations of preparing cotton for the loom are too numerous and complicated to admit of more than a very general description. As the bags or bales are opened at the mills, the first process is to mix thoroughly the cotton of the same staple and general qualities, that the result may be of perfectly uniform character. This is sometimes done in the following manner: The contents of a bale are spread uniformly over a space upon the floor prepared for it, and upon the layer thus made another bale is emptied and spread, and upon this another, and so on, the whole being continually trodden down by men and boys. The pile thus made is called a bing, and as the cotton is required for the mill it is raked down from the top to the bottom on one side of the pile, thus securing a mixture of the contents of all the bales. The mixing should be made with reference to the kind of yarn required, whether for warp or weft, coarse or fine, &c., and the sorting of the cotton for this purpose requires experience and good judgment. Some cottons, particularly those of long and short fibres, cannot be made to draw, rove, or spin well together. The cotton taken from the bing is too impure for spinning until it has been passed through several processes, by which the dirt is winnowed out and the matted lumps are opened and the fibres loosened and cleaned. Different methods are employed to effect this result, according to the quality of the fibre. The finest, which are intended for the most delicate yarns and laces, are beaten by hand upon a frame with twigs; the surface of the frame is a sort of network through which the dust and impurities fall. The cotton, thus beaten or batted, is called batting. Other qualities are passed through a hollow conical machine called a willow, or machines with other names that answer the same purpose, in which the cotton is pulled about and shaken by the action of spikes upon a revolving axis, the dust and impurities as they separate falling through a grating, and being blown through a shoot by a strong current of air created by a fan blower. The cotton at the same time is passed through another shoot to be subjected to the succeeding operations of further cleaning, or to be delivered to the carding machine. The further cleaning, called scutching, is similar in principle to the willowing, the operation being more thoroughly accomplished by beating with blunt knives upon

age to England expressly to engage engravers. The calico printing was intrusted to Mr. John D. Prince, who camo from Manchester in 1826, and retired from his charge in 1855, with an annuity for life of $2,000 settled upon him by the company. Since 1846 the prosperity of the cotton manufacture of the United States has been seriously affected by the large importations from England. Of plain calicoes these have increased from 10,000,000 yards in that year to 85,000,000 yards in 1856, and of printed and dyed calicoes from 18,500,000 to 97,000,000.

an axis revolving with great rapidity. The cotton is regularly fed to the machine by being spread in equal quantities upon the feeding apron, which carries it on in a broad layer till it is taken up by a pair of rollers, and thus presented to the beating knives; in a second part of the machine the same operation is repeated, and as the cotton passes out it is received by the spreading or lapping machine, in which it is flattened into a filmy sheet of uniform thickness and then wound upon a roller.. As one roller is filled it is taken away to the carding machine, and an empty one is set in its place. This process is conducted with such perfect regularity, that the weight of the cotton fed to the machine determines the fineness of the thread afterward produced. The carding process has already been referred to as perfected by Arkwright. It is one of the most ingenious of the operations of this manufacture. The improved machines consist of a large drum covered with cards of wire teeth revolving in a box, which is lined with cards of teeth that come nearly in contact with those upon the drum; or 4 small cylinders covered with cards are placed within the same box, so as to revolve in opposite direction to the large cylinder and at different velocity. Stationary cards are thus also fixed to a part of the upper lining of the box. The machine is fed by a pair of rollers, which unwind the sheet of cotton from the roller of the spreading machine, and pass it in to the cards. These lay out the fibres in one direction, and leave behind upon the stationary cards lumps and imperfections that have escaped the other cleaning operations. As the fibres are carried over on the large cylinder, they are gathered and taken in a fine fleece by the teeth of another cylinder called a doffer, which revolves slowly in a contrary direction. When this has made half a revolution the cotton is stripped from it by a rapidly vibrating toothed knife or comb, that extends the whole length of the doffer. It removes the cotton in a fleecy ribbon, and this, called a cardend or sliver, is drawn through a small funnel which consolidates it, and then between rollers which compress and elongate it, and finally deliver it into a tin cylinder. Cards are of various degrees of fineness according to the quality of yarn required; and for fine spinning two machines are used, the one coarse called a breaker, succeeded by another called a finishing card. But the finest work of this kind accomplished by machinery is done by the combing machine of Heilman, patented in France. With this the short fibres and all impurities are separated from the long-stapled cotton, and the most perfect wool is prepared suitable for the manufacture of the finest muslins and laces. The principle of drawing out the sliver and repeatedly doubling this to produce a uniform roving has already been explained. Various machines have been introduced for twisting this roving and winding it upon bobbins. The fly frame, which came into use in 1817, is one of the most

ingenious and efficient, and has taken the place of the old roving machine of Arkwright. In this frame spindles are set vertically in one or two rows at equal distances apart, each passing through a bobbin which is loosely attached to it, and has a play equal to its length up and down the spindle. At the top of the spindle is suspended a fly with two dependent legs, one of which is solid, and a counterpoise merely to the other, which is hollow, and admits through it the roving, which enters the fly by an eye in the centre, immediately above the top of the spindle. As the spindle revolves it carries the fly with it, thus twisting and winding the roving at the same time around the bobbin. The supply by the rollers is exactly proportioned to the speed of the spindles, which is uniform, and thus the twist is even in equal lengths; but as the fly winds the roving around the bobbin, and this consequently increases in circumference, the loosely twisted yarn would be more and more strained in the winding, were it not for ingenious contrivances which give a varying revolution to the bobbin exactly adapted to the circumference it has attained. It has moreover an alternating motion up and down the spindle, by which the roving is wound upon it in perfectly even layers. This machine, in the perfect adaptation of its parts to each other, and the mathematical accuracy of its operations, furnishes a most instructive study in this department of mechanics. The rovings are next to be spun into yarn, and this is accomplished either by the mule jenny, already partially described, or by the throstle machine. This is similar to the bobbin and fly frame in principle. As the roving is unwound from the bobbins, it is again elongated by passing between three pairs of rollers which revolve at different velocities, and it then passes through an eye in the foot of another flyer, which carries it around another bobbin as it also twists it. This bobbin has no motion adjusted to that of the spindle, but revolves with some friction upon the spindle, being drawn round by the thread, as the pull becomes sufficient to overcome the friction. The revolutions of the spindle in some machines are 5,000 in a minute, and its production in a week is then estimated of No. 32 about 27 hanks. In consequence of the uncertain strain in winding up on the bobbin, the yarns are more likely to break than when they are spun by the mule, and this machine has consequently proved best adapted for the finer qualities of yarn. On account of the extra attention it required, and the time lost in the . interruption to the spinning, as the carriage was run back and the yarns spun in the drawing out were wound upon the cops, the throstle frame was regarded as the most economical for spinning the coarse qualities as low as No. 32; but the improved self-acting mule has proved so much more economical to attend, that it is now advantageously employed for spinning even the coarser yarns. As long ago as 1792 yarns were spun with the mule in Manchester,

of the fineness of 278 hanks to the pound of 840 yards each. It was sold to the muslin manufacturers of Glasgow at 20 guineas the pound. These hanks are prepared by the next process, called reeling. The cops from the mule, or the bobbins from the throstle frame, are set in a frame so that they can be wound off upon a large 6-sided reel, which extends along the top of the same frame. With a reel of the circumference of 14 yards, 560 revolutions give the length of a hank. Many of these are wound along the length of the reel at the same time. When taken off they are weighed separately, and the weight of each designates the fineness of the yarn. The number expresses the number of hanks required to weigh a pound. The coarsest yarns weigh about pound to the hank; but the common qualities for coarse spinning run from 10 to 40 to the pound. The finest spinning seldom exceeds 300 hanks to the pound; no yarn finer than No. 350 was made in Eng land previous to 1840. The next year Messrs. Houldsworth of Manchester produced No. 450, and at the great exhibition of 1851 they furnished some lace made of No. 600, and also muslin for a dress for the queen made of No. 460, which exceeds in fineness any of the famed India productions. In a notice in the London "Despatch" it was stated that the same firm exhibited threads of No. 900, and also one specimen of No. 2,150, such that a pound would reach 1,026 miles. Even the No. 600 is too delicate to be handled or to serve any useful purpose. The finer yarns are singed by being run through a gas flame; they are then passed over a brush, and run through a hole in a piece of brass just large enough to admit the yarn. Any knot or bulge stops the yarn, and the defect is immediately remedied. The hanks are made up into cubical bundles of 5 or 10 lbs., and pressed and tied, when they are ready for the loom or for being twisted into thread, properly so called. Of this there are several kinds, as the sewing thread, lace thread, stocking thread, &c. They are all produced by doubling and twisting together two yarns or more, and by machines very similar to the throstle frame; the yarns as they are twisted are passed through water or a weak solution of starch, which gives more firmness and strength to the thread.-For further data connected with this manufacture, the reader is referred to the articles CALICO, CALENDERING, FACTORY, LOOM.-Cotton is distinguished from linen by the peculiar structure of its fibre when seen under a powerful microscope, the form being flattened, crooked, and shrivelled, while that of the linen fibre is round and straight with occasional cross knots or joints. Linen yarn also becomes yellow in a strong and hot solution in water of caustic potash, while cotton remains white, or is colored very slightly yellow. The two fibres may also be distinguished by the different effects produced upon them by concentrated sulphuric acid. The stuff to be tested must first be thoroughly cleaned by boiling and repeated washing in pure water. When well

dried it is dipped in the acid and left from half a minute to 2 minutes. The cotton threads become immediately transparent, the linen remaining white. It is then taken out and put in water to wash out the gummy matter produced by the cotton. On being dried, if the experiment has been well conducted, the yarns of cotton will have disappeared; but if the immersion in acid has been too long the linen also becomes transparent and eaten by the acid. Another method by which cotton is detected in unbleached linen is to place the stuff, after it is well washed in boiling water and dried, in a mixture of 2 parts of dried nitrate of potash and 3 parts of sulphuric acid, and leave it for 8 or 10 minutes. It is then washed and dried and treated with ether, to which a little alcohol is added. If cotton was present in the stuff, the ethereal liquid is thickened by the production of collodion. This may be separated, leaving the residue pure linen. When the fibre of cotton is thoroughtly consumed, the remaining ash is found to be about 1 per cent. of the original weight.-The cotton seed produces about 4 per cent. ash, which consists largely of phosphates, as seen by the 2d of the following analyses, the 1st presenting the composition of the ash of the fibre:

The seed constituting a large proportion of the weight, it must rapidly extract from the Soil elements essential to the growth of the plant; hence the importance of restoring it to the land as manure, unless some substitute of animal matters is provided. The seed is of an oily nature, yielding a vegetable drying oil; but the quantity does not appear to be sufficient to justify its extraction; and the seed is more valuable as a fertilizer than to be applied to illuminating purposes by the production of either oil or gas. Cotton itself is converted to few other purposes beside affording a material for yarns and thread. It is used to some extent for ropes; but these are unsuitable for many purposes by reason of their liability to stretch and shrink. The batting is used for wadding dresses and

bed comforters, and the raw cotton is made into mattresses, cushions, &c. By the action of nitric acid an explosive substance is prepared from the fibre, for the nature and uses of which see GUN COTTON and COLLODION. Cotton is a useful application in the dressing of burns and scalds, and a decoction of the root is sometimes administered as an emmenagogue, as that of the seeds is employed at the south as a remedy in intermittent fever.

COTTON WORM, the caterpillar of an owlet moth, of the tribe of noctua (N. xylina, Say). The perfect insect is of a triangular shape, about an inch in length; the upper wings reddish gray, a dark spot with a whitish centre in the middle; the under wings are darker. The caterpillars have 16 legs, but the foremost prop legs are so short that in creeping they arch up the back like the geometers or span worms; the color is green, with light yellow stripes and black dots along the back; the 2d and 3d generations are darker than the 1st; they grow to the length of an inch and a half. The eggs are deposited from 10 to 15 on the under surface of the tender leaves, to which they are firmly attached, and of a color resembling the leaf; the period of incubation is variously stated from 6 to 15 days, depending probably on the heat of the season; the time of hatching is at night, and the young begin to eat very soon, growing very rapidly; the skin is changed several times before they attain their full growth; in 15 to 20 days after attaining the full size they cease to feed, and form an imperfect cocoon of a leaf and silk; in this the chrysalis state is passed, from 10 to 12 days; after this the moths lay their eggs, and die after a period of about a week, or, according to some observers, surviving mild winters. This insect is in some years exceedingly destructive to the cotton, sometimes cutting off the entire crop of certain districts; it appears often in a sudden and unaccountable manner, as if it must migrate from the south. They were first noticed as destroyers of cotton about the year 1800, since which their ravages have been more or less serious almost every year; it is believed by some that they appear at intervals of 3 years in the same districts, and that their greatest ravages occur after intervals of 21 years; the years 1804, 1825, and 1846 were remarkable in this respect; the time of year varies from June to October. A moderate degree of cold is sufficient to kill them, though moisture and strong winds do not appear to disturb them. They devour both the short staple and the long staple cotton, and rarely, if ever, touch any other plant. When they appear early in the season, there are usually 3 broods. This is undoubtedly the insect referred to by Dr. Burnett in the "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," vol. iv. p. 316; he is of opinion that it comes from South America, and that the last brood perishes entirely, either from cold or starvation, leaving no progeny behind them. Fires in the fields have been recommended as attracting and destroying this moth; white

cotton flags, about a yard square, are said to attract it, and to be used as deposits for the eggs; great numbers may be caught by molasses and vinegar spread on plates. But these and similar contrivances will be of little avail until the exact appearance of the first moths is ascertained; then their speedy destruction would prevent the production of the 2d and 3d crops, and thus limit, if it did not arrest, their ravages.Another insect, destroying great numbers of cotton buds, is the boll-worm moth, belonging to the same tribe of noctuæ, and probably to the genus heliothes. This is a tawny, yellowish moth, which may be seen toward evening, in summer and autumn, hovering over the cotton blooms, and depositing a single egg in each flower; the egg is hatched in 3 or 4 days, and the worm eats its way into the centre of the boll, causing its premature fall; the insect instinc tively leaves the boll when it is about to fall, and enters another, and finally attacks the nearly matured bolls, rendering the cotton rotten and useless. The caterpillars have 16 feet, creeping with a gradual motion, unlike the true cotton worm; they vary much in color, some being green, others brown, but all more or less spotted with black, and having a few short hairs. A single moth will lay 500 eggs, and, as 3 broods are produced in a year, a whole field will be very soon infested with them.-These are the two greatest enemies on the cotton plantations, and the same remedies are effectual in both. In the "Agricultural Report of the Commissioner of Patents," for 1855, is an excellent article by Townend Glover, Esq., on the insects found on the cotton plant, on the stalk, on the leaf, on the terminal shoots, on the flower, and on the boll, whether injurious, beneficial, or indifferent. Many cotton worms are destroyed by spiders, beetles, and ichneumon flies.

COTTON, CHARLES, an English humorist and poet, born at Beresford Hall, Staffordshire, in 1630, died at Westminster in 1687. He was educated at Cambridge, travelled on the continent, and inherited in 1658 his father's property, already much encumbered, to the burdens on which he soon added. His estate was near the river Dove, famous for its beauty and its trout, where he passed a studious and careless life, delighting his friends by his humor and accomplishments. He built a fishing house on the banks of the Dove, in which he entertained for years his friend Izaak Walton. For recreation as well as pecuniary relief, he translated several works from the French and Italian, among which were Montaigne's "Essays" and Corneille's tragedy of "Horace." He made a wealthy second marriage, which, however, did not remove his embarrassments, as the lady's fortune was secured from his mismanagement. In 1664 and 1672 he published "Scarronides, or Virgile Travestie," an indelicate burlesque of the 1st and 4th books of the Eneid. He also burlesqued several of the dialogues of Lucian, in poetical translations, and wrote a serious poem entitled the "Wonders of the Peake" (1681), a humorous piece entitled a