ing, making the
trouble worse.

In the extremity of trade the Royal Society offered a prize to any
person who would invent a machine to spin a number of threads at the
same time. As a result of this demand, James Hargreaves in 1764
invented the spinning-jenny, which was followed by Arkwright's
invention of spinning by rollers, which was patented in 1769.
Combining Arkwright's and Hargreaves's inventions, Crompton in 1779
invented the spinning-"mule." This quickened the process of spinning
and greatly increased the production of the weavers. But one necessity
satisfied leads to another in invention, and Cartwright's powerloom,
which was introduced in 1784, came into general use at the beginning of
the nineteenth century.

During this period America had become a producer of cotton, and Eli
Whitney's cotton-gin, invented in 1792, which separated the seeds from
the cotton fibre in the boll, greatly stimulated the production of
cotton in the United States. In the meanwhile the steam-engine, which
had been perfected in 1769, was applied to power manufacture in 1785 by
James Watt. This was the final stroke that completed the power
manufacture of cotton and woollen goods.

Other changes were brought about by the new method of smelting ore by
means of coal, charcoal having been hitherto used for the process, and
the invention of the blast-furnace in 1760 by Roebuck, which brought
the larger use of metals into the manufactures of the world. To aid in
the carrying trade, the building of canals between the large
manufacturing towns in England to the ocean, and the building of
highways over England, facilitated transportation and otherwise
quickened industry. Thus we have in a period of less than forty years
the most remarkable and unprecedented change in industry, which has
never been exceeded in importance even by the introduction of the
gasoline-engine and electrical power.

{437}

_The Change of Handcraft to Power Manufacture_.--Prior to the
development of the mechanical contrivances for spinning and weaving and
the application of steam-power to manufacturing, nearly everything in
Europe was made by hand. All clothing, carpets, draperies, tools,
implements, furniture--everything was hand-made. In this process no
large capital was needed, no great factories, no great assemblage of
laborers, no great organization of industry. The work was done in
homes and small shops by individual enterprise, mainly, or in
combi