2. Hargreaves’ Spinning-jenny.—­The first important invention of the period was the spinning-jenny of Hargreaves (1764).  This man was an ordinary spinner, and the story is told that one day, when he was returning from the dealer with a fresh supply of cotton, he came home before his wife expected him.  Supper was not ready, and in her haste to rise to prepare it, she overturned the wheel when it was still in motion.  Hargreaves, entering at that moment, noticed that the spindle, usually horizontal, was now revolving in an upright position.  This gave him the idea, and a short time afterwards he invented a machine with which one person could spin several threads at once (at first eight).  From it has been developed the complicated machinery for spinning used to-day.

3. Arkwright’s Spinning-frame or Water-frame. Sir Richard Arkwright invented, in 1771, a machine that accomplished the whole process of spinning, the worker merely feeding the machine and tying breaks in the thread.  This machine was run by water-power, thus doing away with hand-power and allowing the operator to attend entirely to the spinning.

4. The Mule. In 1779, Crompton invented a mule, by which threads of a finer and stronger quality could be spun, and thus made it possible to weave any grade of cloth.

5. The Power-loom. The spinners were now able to keep ahead of the weavers, till Cartwright invented, in 1785, a power-loom that enabled the weavers to work faster and use all the thread that the spinners could make.

6. The Steam-engine. These machines were run by hand or water-power.  In 1785, Watts’ steam-engine, invented several years before this, was used in the manufacture of cotton, and manufacturers were now able to use all the raw material they could get.  The use of steam instead of water-power led to the building of factories in cities, where labour was plentiful and transportation facilities good.  This meant large cities.

7. The Cotton-gin. Cotton had to be cleaned of its seeds before it could be used in the factory.  This had to be done by hand, which greatly hindered the supply of raw material.  A good deal of the raw cotton came from the United States, and the planters there grew no more than could be cleaned and sold.  In 1792, Eli Whitney, an American, invented the cotton-gin, by which the cotton could be cleaned of its seed very quickly.  Formerly a workman could clean by hand only five pounds of cotton a week; by the saw-gin five hundred pounds could be cleaned in an hour. (If a cotton-boll can be procured, the pupils will soon discover how difficult it is to separate the seeds from the cotton.) More cotton was then grown, because it could be sold to the factories, and England was able to get all she required to keep the factories going.  It may be added here that the increase in cotton growing required more hands for its cultivation; at that time, this meant more slaves; the cotton-gin was therefore a large factor in the slave troubles in the Southern States that led to the Civil War.