by Thomas Wood in 1774; the crank for working the doffer comb, invented by James Hargreaves in 1772; and a feeder, or cloth for feeding the carding engine, invented by John Lees in 1772.[1] That Arkwright covered other people's inventions in his patent was officially determined; but of his immense service to the world in teaching it how to utilize the inventions of others, and by their combination and improvement, there can be no doubt. He sought and found capital, keen enough to see the possibilities hidden in crude and isolated inventions. More than twelve thousand pounds had been expended in his mills before any profits were realized. But when profits once began they came fast, and here was made the first of the colossal fortunes which the manipulation of cotton and wool has brought to Great Britain.
Samuel Crompton, the inventor of mule-spinning, had a different experience from Arkwright, although he contributed quite as much to the mechanical evolution of the textile industries. His first mule, invented about 1779, carried forty-eight spindles on a movable carriage, the spindles turning on their axes and centers, while the movable carriage was receding from the rollers, which measured out the roving to a certain length. Two pairs of rollers were used, made of wood and covered with sheepskin, having an axis of iron. One pair revolved at a greater speed than the other, thus producing a draught or elongation of three or four inches to one. The carriage with the spindles could, by the movement of the hand and knee, recede just as the rollers delivered out the elongated thread in a soft state, so that it would allow of a considerable stretch before the thread had to encounter the stretch of winding on the spindle. Crompton thus adopted the system of spinning by rollers, wedded it to the useful jenny of poor Hargreaves, and endowed that union with the spindle-carriage, which was the crowning merit of his invention. Crompton's mule increased the power of a spinner a hundred-fold.
In this machine was first accomplished the automatic mechanical action of the spinner's left arm and forefinger and thumb, which held and elongated the sliver as the spindle was twisting it into yarn. It produced a yarn of much greater fineness and evenness than it had been possible to make by any process previously in use. This invention was the prototype of the mule, thousands of which are at work throughout the world to-day. It got this name from its combination of Paul's and Hargreaves's inventions.
The Crompton machine was correct in principle, but a rude piece of workmanship, dependent in all its original movements upon manual labor. Water was first applied to it as a motive
- ↑ Bennet Woodcraft.
