th eye at midpoint appeared in several 19th-century
sewing-machine inventions.

The earliest of the known mechanical sewing devices produced a chain or
tambour stitch, but by an entirely different principle than that used
with either needle just described. Although the idea was incorporated
into a patent, the machine was entirely overlooked for almost a century
as the patent itself was classed under wearing apparel. It was entitled
"An Entire New Method of Making and Completing Shoes, Boots,
Splatterdashes, Clogs, and Other Articles, by Means of Tools and
Machines also Invented by Me for that Purpose, and of Certain
Compositions of the Nature of Japan or Varnish, which will be very
advantageous in many useful Applications." This portentously titled
British patent 1,764 was issued to an English cabinetmaker, Thomas
Saint, on July 17, 1790. Along with accounts of several processes for
making various varnish compositions, the patent contains descriptions of
three separate machines; the second of these was for "stitching,
quilting, or sewing." Though far from practical, the machine
incorporated several features common to a modern sewing machine. It had
a horizontal cloth plate or table, an overhanging arm carrying a
straight needle, and a continuous supply of thread from a spool. The
motion was derived from the rotation of a hand crank on a shaft, which
activated cams that produced all the actions of the machine.

[Illustration: Figure 2.--PRIMITIVE NEEDLE. Bronze. Egyptian (Roman
period, 30 B.C.-A.D. 642). (Smithsonian photo 1379-A.)]

One cam operated the forked needle (fig. 5) that pushed the thread
through a hole made by a preceding thrust of the awl. The thread was
caught by a looper and detained so that it then became enchained in the
next loop of thread. The patent described thread tighteners above and
below the work and an adjustment to vary the stitches for different
kinds of material. Other than the British patent records, no
contemporary reference to Saint's machine has ever been found. The
stitching-machine contents of this patent was happened on by accident in
1873.[5] Using the patent description, a Newton Wilson of London
attempted to build a model of Saint's machine in 1874.[6] Wilson found,
however, that it was necessary to modify the construction before the
machine would stitch at all.

[Illustration: Figure 3.--TAMBOUR NEEDLE AND FRAME, showing the method
of forming the chainstitch, from the Diderot E