I proceeded to Belper, eight miles, to view the superb establishment of the Messrs. Strutt, as cotton spinners.  The excellent road, which continues to Matlock, and the north, lay through the most delightfully variegated country which I had seen since I left Hertfordshire.  The village of Duffield, in a valley of the Derwent, with houses on the steep eastern bank, and woods to the top, is one of the prettiest to be seen.  On crossing the river, I beheld long lines of cottages, built for the residence of the families employed in Messrs. Strutts’ smaller factory at Melford.  Passing this, the extensive but straggling and picturesque town of Belper, covered the eastern hill.  What remains of the old town, is not a tithe of the present one, and the whole is now supported by Messrs. Strutts’ gigantic mills.

I approached these with mingled pleasure and astonishment.  A manufactory, in such hands, presented none of the usual drawbacks on one’s feelings.  They never discharge their workmen; and good conduct is a life interest in comfort!  The picturesque beauty of the situation, the height and extent of the buildings, and the increase of the busy throng, as I entered the yard, was exhilarating.  The effect grew as I approached, for the distance of two or three hundred yards, the noise, produced by the united rattling of thousands of small wheels, was like the sound of a hail storm on a large sky-light, or the fall of an immense sheet of water.

There are five oblong factories and two circular ones.  The five are six stories high, with ten or twelve windows on each story, so that in the five there are, at least, as many regular windows as days in the year.  The circular buildings have forty or fifty more.

In this establishment, and at Melford, Messrs. Strutt employ, at present, about 1,300 hands of both sexes and different ages, and spin about 18 tons, or 40,000 lbs. of cotton per week.  The average fineness may be taken at 20 hanks to the pound, and hence, as each hank is 840 yards, or nearly half a mile, every pound is nearly ten miles, and the whole, about 400,000 miles are produced in about sixty-six working hours.  In round numbers, this is 6,000 miles per hour, or 100 miles a minute.  What an astonishing effect of the combination of mechanism!  What an inconceivable miracle, if it might not be witnessed by their favour at any time!

Nor should it be forgotten, that every fibre passes through no less than ten sets of machinery, hence, the united spindles and threads travel through 1,000 miles a minute.  The noise of their united frictions and collisions, and the united hum of thousands of little spindles, each revolving 4,000 times a minute, may, therefore, be accounted for, but can never be conceived, unless heard in the midst of them.