eady strong in New York and the South, and in 1790 a Methodist
church had been gathered in Boston.

The manufacture of corduroys, bed-ticking, fustian, jeans, and
cotton-yarn had been started. Iron ore and iron ware of nearly all sorts
was produced. Syracuse was manufacturing salt. Lynn already made morocco
leather, and Dedham, straw braid for hats. Cotton was regularly exported
in small quantities from the South. In New York one could get a decayed
tooth filled or a set of false teeth made. Four daily stages ran between
New York and Philadelphia. The Boston ship Columbia had circumnavigated
the globe. The United States Mint was still working by horse-power, not
employing steam till 1815. Whitney's cotton-gin had been invented in
1793. Terry, of Plymouth, Conn., was making clocks. There were in the
land two insurance companies, possibly more. Cast-iron ploughs, of home
make, were displacing the old ones of wood. Morse's "Geography" and
Webster's "Spelling-book" were on the market, and extensively used.

[Illustration: Drawing.]
Cotton Plant.

[Illustration: Drawing.]
The Cotton-Gin.
From the original model.

The great industrial inventions which were to color the entire
civilization of mankind had a powerful effect upon America. So early as
1775, in England, Crompton's mule-jenny had superseded Hargreaves'
spinning machine. The latter had improved on the old spinning-wheel by
making eight, and later eighty, threads with the effort and time the old
arrangement had required for one; but the threads were no better, and
could be used only for woof, linen being required for warp. Arkwright's
roller arrangement was an improvement upon Hargreaves'. It bettered the
quality of the threads, making them evener, so that they could serve for
warp as well as woof. Crompton's mule was another quantitative
improvement, combining the excellences of both Hargreaves and Arkwright.
One man could with this machinery work twenty-two hundred spindles, and
they went much faster than by the ancient wheel. Then came steam-power.
Watts's engine was adapted to spinning and carding cotton at Manchester
in 1783. Two years later the cylinder printing of cottons was invented,
and a little after began the use of acid in bleaching.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
Eli Whitney.

These mighty industrial devices did not cross to America immediately,
but were all here before the time of which we now write. A
spinning-jenny was indeed exhibited