States within a few years. Twenty years ago, our iron furnaces produced no castings, which united the properties of strength and solidity, with such softness as to enable the workmen to give them any kind of finish. The many serious accidents which happened during the last war by the bursting of our cannon, must be fresh in the minds of most of our readers. These imperfections were not to be attributed to the quality of our ore, but wholly to the want of skill in working it. The importance of this art to every other, where any kind of machinery is used, is seldom sufficiently appreciated. We believe that the reason why the machinery of this country does not operate in general so well as that of England, though of the same construction, is to be found principally in the imperfection of our castings, which obliges us often to substitute wood for iron, and that too, in many cases where great strength and the power of preserving their figure unchanged, are highly essential. In the history of the improvements of the arts, as in every thing else, the chain of cause and effect is often too fine to be distinctly visible, but we think that every one, after a moment's consideration of the subject, will agree with us, that improvement in the workmanship of machinery tends directly and powerfully to the successful exercise of mechanical invention.

It has been principally in the heavier and rougher kinds of iron work, that improvements have lately been made. The arts of making fine cutlery and watches, although considerably improved of late years, have advanced by no means so rapidly as they did for some time before. Improvements in these arts were the result of the division of labor, which was carried to great minuteness an hundred years ago, and the advantages which resulted from it in the manufacture of many fine steel instruments and watches, were astonishing. According to Adam Smith, a better watch could be purchased in his time for twenty shillings, than could have been bought about the middle of the seventeenth century for twenty pounds.

But the introduction of the steam engine into the manufacture of heavy iron wares, has been of great advantage. And we ought to notice also the invention of the machine for making nails. We have before alluded to the cost and labor of this invention. Few machines are now, however, more perfect in their operations, or have been more successful in their way. This machine originated from a practice, which

began about thirty years ago, of cutting off slivers from iron hoops, with a pair of common shears, and heading them in a smith's vice, to be used in building instead of nails. From such rude beginnings has grown up the present nail machine, which is capable of producing two hundred and sixty complete nails in one minute.

But as any enumeration of modern improvements in the arts, which we can make, must necessarily be imperfect, if not tedious to our readers, we shall pursue the subject in this way no farther. We may observe, however, that a principal cause of the great saving of labor, from the use of machines generally, is, that their moving force is derived from some physical action of inorganic matter, or from the strength of some brute animal. In fact, many of the most useful machines are no more than the means by which a single motion, as that of water or steam, acting in one direction and with one velocity, is divided and modified into many motions acting in different directions, and with various velocities, but having such relations to each other that the instruments which they put in motion shall perform those operations necessary to produce a nail, a thread, a card, a piece of lace, or whatever else may be the subject of manufacture. These facts make it very desirable to know, which of the several powers or forces offers to the manufacturer the greatest advantage. But on this subject no estimate of universal application has been or can be made. The character of the force must be such as shall suit the kind of manufacture to which it is to be applied. Otherwise, although it be in cost cheaper, it may be less economical. Thus the force of wind may be obtained in great quantities at a small expense; but as it sometimes wholly remits its action, it would be far from prudent to employ it, where a number of workmen could labor only when a supply of such a force could be obtained. The numerous waterfalls in New-England have long furnished almost the only force employed for driving our machinery. In many cases this force is sufficiently constant, and being cheaper than steam, it is to be preferred to it. But waterfalls are rarely to be found in large towns, and often not in their immediate vicinity, places where many kinds of manufacture are most advantageously carried on; whilst one of the great excellencies of the steam-engine is, that its force may be obtained at all times, in all places, and in any quantity. It is an important fact, however, in the economy of steam, that a

certain measure of power is obtained considerably cheaper from a large than from a small engine; so that for a power merely equal to one or two horses, it is probably as cheap to use the animal as the steam engine. The high price of fuel in our large towns renders this power much more expensive to us than it is in places where coals are plenty. But, notwithstanding this, in engines of an ordinary size, from pretty good information on the subject we can state, that the cost of a given quantity of power will be to that of the same quantity obtained from horses, about as one to four, if the engine be kept in constant operation, and about as two to five if worked only twelve hours per day: an advantage sufficiently marked to determine a preference, even where all the other circumstances are equal; and they can hardly be unfavorable to the use of steam, from any thing in the character of that power.

The actual value of modern improvements in the useful arts can only be estimated by the number of persons, which they have in effect given to agriculture and other useful employments, by abundantly supplying all our wants of useful manufactures with fewer artisans than would otherwise have been required. The record of facts necessary to make an estimate on this subject is extremely scanty, particularly in our own country. The reports of the marshals, in the year 1810, furnished materials for two or three works, which contain some account of our manufactures. Of these, Mr Coxe's statement of the arts and manufactures of the United States of America' is the most valuable. But the materials from which this work was composed were manifestly imperfect, for the period when they were collected; and such has been the rapid growth of our manufactures since that time, that we are not to depend now upon a valuation made twelve years since. The reports of the marshals, for the year 1820, have not yet found their way to the public, no digest having been made from them. We have been unable to obtain a copy of the original reports. The inquiries, however, instituted by the parliament of England, into the trade and manufactures of that kingdom, have been the means of furnishing to the public considerable information of the value of the machinery of Great Britain, which we shall proceed to notice.

By an examination made by the house of commons in 1800, it appeared that woollen goods were annually manufactured to the amount of £19,800,000. The number of persons directly

employed was stated by Mr Law, afterwards lord Ellenborough, to be 1,500,000; an equal number receiving employment indirectly in consequence of being engaged in some collateral branch of trade. These numbers, however, have been proved much too high. At the same time, it was admitted by the manufacturers, that by the improvements in their machinery thirty-five persons could produce a quantity of cloth, which would have employed sixteen hundred and thirty-four persons an equal period of time, with the machinery used in 1785, which is increasing the product of labor about forty-six fold. But that this estimate of the value of the machinery of 1800 is materially erroneous, is sufficiently proved by the fact, that in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the manufacture has advanced as rapidly as it has in any part of the kingdom, the quantity of cloth manufactured in 1770 was to the quantity manufactured in 1817, about as one to three by measure, the quantity having advanced through the intermediate years pretty steadily. It may be estimated also, that the quality has been improved in an equal ratio. Now, if we suppose the number of workmen to have continued the same, and we do not think the variation on this head to have been large, we shall have the product of their labor increased about nine fold. Taking then the whole number of individuals employed in the trade to be 800,000, the product of their labor is equal to that of 7,200,000, with the machinery of 1770; or the present woollen machinery of England is equal in value to the industry of 6,400,000 people; an industry, too, it must be remembered, which furnishes to the country its product, without asking food or clothing in return. However enormous this source of wealth may seem to those, who have not been in the habit of making themselves acquainted with the subject, it is yet of small consequence when compared with the product of the cotton trade.

As might be expected, there is great want of uniformity of opinion among the few who have undertaken to state the saving of labor by the use of cotton machinery. The manufacturers themselves have not a very accurate knowledge of the comparative effect of equal quantities of labor, aided in the one case with machinery, and in the other applying itself without that advantage, because the cotton manufacture itself has grown up altogether with the machinery, having been almost unknown in Europe before the invention of the jenny. We

believe that generally the value of improvements are overrated in public accounts; and it does not appear that the cotton machinery forms an exception to this rule. Some writers have stated it to increase the product of labor two hundred fold. But there is hardly a process of the manufacture which warrants so high an estimate, and it must be remembered that some operations require now the same labor that they did in the infancy of the manufacture. On the whole, we think that one person may be considered now as equal in effect to fifty, employing the implements common sixty years ago; and if we take the whole number of people employed in Great Britain in this branch of industry at 650,000, we must consider the cotton machinery of that country as equalling in value the labor of 31,850,000 people. All the other machinery of Great Britain, invented within the last sixty years, except the steam-engine, which supplying a moving force to other machines, of itself produces nothing, does not probably approach the value of the cotton machinery alone.

We are not able to satisfy ourselves of the value of the machinery of the United States, in any great branch of industry, from the defects to which we have before alluded, in the only authentic source of information. The wool of the United States is estimated by Mr Coxe, for the year 1812, at from twenty to twenty-two millions of pounds, and it is generally stated that about one hundred millions of pounds of the same article are annually manufactured in England. This would give the woollen machinery of the United States equal to the labor of one million two hundred and eighty thousand people, if the manufacture were practised by the same method here that it is in England. But as the domestic mode prevails in this country to a greater comparative degree, no valuation formed in this way is worthy of much confidence.

But, however imposing this array of the manufacturing power of England may appear to us, we must remember that it is by no means to be taken into the account, in comparing the political importance of the two nations. The labor saved by mechanical improvements is for the common benefit of the world at large. It is impossible for any nation to derive great and exclusive advantage, even from their own inventions, for any considerable period. An almost immediate effect of improvements, in any branch of manufacture, is to reduce the price of the article manufactured. This always has followed,