always rotate in the same direction, but while
the revolutions per minute of the spindles are constant, so as to keep
the twist uniform, those of the bobbins are always varying, in order to
compensate for their increasing diameters or thicknesses of the bobbins.
The delivery of cotton from the rollers is also constant and the
mechanism required to operate them is exceedingly simple.

A vast number of details could easily be added respecting the operations
performed by the bobbin and fly frames, but further treatment is deemed
unnecessary in this story.

CHAPTER VII.

EARLY ATTEMPTS AT SPINNING, AND EARLY INVENTORS.

There can be no better illustration of the truth of the old saying, that
"Necessity is the mother of invention," than to read the early history
of the cotton manufacture, and the difficulties under which the pioneers
of England's greatest industry laboured.

The middle years of the eighteenth century act as the watershed between
the old and the new in cotton manufacture, for up to 1760 the same type
of machinery was found in England which had existed in India for
centuries. But a change was coming, and as a greater demand arose for
cotton goods, it became absolutely necessary to discover some better way
of manipulating cotton, in order to get off a greater production.

"When inventors fail in their projects, no one pities them; when they
succeed, persecution, envy, and jealousy are their reward." So says
Baines, and it would appear, from reference to the history of the cotton
industry, to be only too true. Certain it is, that the early inventors
of the machinery for improving cotton spinning did not reap the
advantages which their labours and inventions entitled them to. They
ploughed and sowed, but others reaped.

Among the most celebrated of the early inventors, the following stand
out in great prominence--John Kay, Lewis Paul, John Wyatt, Richard
Arkwright, Thomas Highs, James Hargreaves, and Samuel Crompton.

When and how spinning originated no one can say, though it can be traced
back through many, many centuries. Several nations claim to have been
the first to discover the art, but when asked for proof the initial
stages are greatly obscured by impenetrable clouds of mystery.

For example, the Egyptians credit the goddess Isis with the discovery,
the Greeks Minerva, the Chinese the Emperor Yao. It is related of
Hercules, that, when in love with Omphale, he debased himself by taking
th