of his wife he named it
the "Spinning-jenny." The secret of this device soon came out and
jennies spinning twenty or thirty or more threads at a time came into
use here and there through the old spinning districts. At the same
time a much more effective method was being brought to perfection by
Richard Arkwright, who followed out some old experiments of Wyatt of
Northampton. According to this plan the carded material was carried
through successive pairs of rollers, each pair running more rapidly
than the previous pair, thus stretching it out, while it was spun
after leaving the last pair by flyers adapted from the old low or
treadle spinning-wheel. Arkwright's first patent was taken out in
1769, and from that time forward he invented, patented, and
manufactured a series of machines which made possible the spinning of
a number of threads at the same time very much more rapidly than even
the spinning-jenny. Great numbers of Arkwright's spinning-machines
were manufactured and sold by him and his partners. He made others for
use in cotton mills carried on by himself with various partners in
different parts of the country. His patent was eventually set aside as
having been unfairly obtained, and the machines were soon generally
manufactured and used. Improvements followed. An ingenious weaver
named Samuel Crompton, perceiving that the roller spinning was more
rapid but that the jennies would spin the finer thread, combined the
two devices into one machine, known from its hybrid origin as the
"mule." This was invented in 1779, and as it was not patented it soon
came into general use. These inventions in spinning reacted on the
earlier processes and led to a rapid development of carding and
combing machines. A carding cylinder had been invented by Paul as far
back as 1748, and now came into general use, while several
wool-combing machines were invented in 1792 and 1793.

[Illustration: Sir Richard Arkwright. (Portrait by Wright.)]

So far all these inventions had been in the earlier textile processes.
Use for the spun thread was found in giving fuller employment to the
old hand looms, in the stocking manufacture, and for export; but no
corresponding improvement had taken place in weaving. From 1784 onward
a clergyman from the south of England, Dr. Edward Cartwright, was
gradually bringing to perfection a power loom which by the beginning
of the nineteenth century began to come into general use. The value
put upon Cartwright