1855 at an advanced age, his mental faculties
remaining clear and unclouded to the last. His departure from life was
happy and tranquil--so easy that it was for a time doubtful whether he
was dead or asleep.

To return to Mr. Fairbairn's career, and his progress as a millwright
and engineer in Manchester. When he and his partner undertook the
extensive alterations in Mr. Murray's factory, both were in a great
measure unacquainted with the working of cotton-mills, having until
then been occupied principally with corn-mills, and printing and
bleaching works; so that an entirely new field was now opened to their
united exertions. Sedulously improving their opportunities, the young
partners not only thoroughly mastered the practical details of
cotton-mill work, but they were very shortly enabled to introduce a
series of improvements of the greatest importance in this branch of our
national manufactures. Bringing their vigorous practical minds to bear
on the subject, they at once saw that the gearing of even the best
mills was of a very clumsy and imperfect character. They found the
machinery driven by large square cast-iron shafts, on which huge wooden
drums, some of them as much as four feet in diameter, revolved at the
rate of about forty revolutions a minute; and the couplings were so
badly fitted that they might be heard creaking and groaning a long way
off. The speeds of the driving-shafts were mostly got up by a series
of straps and counter drums, which not only crowded the rooms, but
seriously obstructed the light where most required for conducting the
delicate operations of the different machines. Another serious defect
lay in the construction of the shafts, and in the mode of fixing the
couplings, which were constantly giving way, so that a week seldom
passed without one or more breaks-down. The repairs were usually made
on Sundays, which were the millwrights' hardest working days, to their
own serious moral detriment; but when trade was good, every
consideration was made to give way to the uninterrupted running of the
mills during the rest of the week.

It occurred to Mr. Fairbairn that the defective arrangements thus
briefly described, might be remedied by the introduction of lighter
shafts driven at double or treble the velocity, smaller drums to drive
the machinery, and the use of wrought-iron wherever practicable,
because of its greater lightness and strength compared with wood. He
also provided for