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weight to one end of the spindle, which is turned round with the left hand while the cotton is supplied with the right; the thread is wound up on a small piece of wood. The spinster keeps her fingers dry by the use of a chalky powder. In this simple way the Indian women, whose sense of touch is most acute and delicate, produce yarns which are finer and far more tenacious than any of the machine spun yarns of Europe.

The yarn having been reeled and warped in the simplest possible manner, is given to the weaver, whose loom is as rude an apparatus as can be imagined; consisting merely of two bamboo rollers for the warp and web, and a pair of gear. The shuttle performs the double office of shuttle and batten, and for this purpose is made like a large netting needle, and of a length somewhat exceeding the breadth of the piece. This apparatus the weaver carries to a tree, under which he digs a hole large enough to contain his legs and the lower part of his gear. He then stretches his warp by fastening the bamboo rollers at a due distance from each other on the turf by wooden pins; the balances of the gear he fastens to some convenient branch of the tree over his head; two loops underneath the gear, into which he inserts his great toes, serve instead of treadles, and his long shuttle, which also performs the office of batten, draws the weft through the warp, and after. wards strikes it up close to the web. There is not so much as an expedient for rolling up the warp; it is stretched out at the full length of the web, which makes the house of the weaver insufficient to contain him. He is therefore obliged to work continually in the open air, and every return of inclement weather interrupts him.

It cannot but seem astonishing, that in a department of industry where the raw material is so grossly neglected, the machinery so rude, and the division of labor so little, that the results should be fabrics of the most exquisite delicacy and beauty, unrivalled by the products of other nations, even those best skilled in the mechanic arts. This anomaly is explained by the remarkably fine sense of touch possessed by that effeminate people, their patience and gentleness, and by the hereditary continuance of a particular species of manufacture in families through many generations, which leads to the training of children from their very infancy in the processes of the art. The rigid, clumsy fingers of an European would scarcely be able to make a piece of canvass with the instruments which are all that an Indian employs in making a piece of cambric (muslin.) It is farther remarkable, that every distinct kind of cloth is the production of a particular district, in which the fabric has been transmitted, perhaps for centuries, from father to

son. The unequalled manual skill of the Indian weaver may be thus explained:-It is a sedentary occupation, and thus in har. mony with his predominant inclination; it requires patience, of which he has an inexhaustible fund; it requires little bodily exer. tion, of which he is always exceedingly sparing; and the finer the production, the more slender the force he is called upon to apply. But this is not all: the weak and delicate frame of the Hindoo is accompanied with an acuteness of external sense, particularly of touch, which is altogether unrivalled, and the flexibility of his fingers is equally remarkable. The hand of the Hindoo, therefore, constitutes an organ adapted to the finest operations of the loom, in a degree which is almost, or altogether, peculiar to himself.

It is, then, to a physical organization in the natives, admirably suited to the processes of spinning and weaving; to the possession of the raw material in the greatest abundance; to the possession, also, of the most brilliant dyes for staining and printing the cloth; to a climate that renders the colors lively and durable; and to the hereditary practice by particular castes, classes, and families, both of the manual and chemical processes required in the manufacture; it is to these causes, with very little aid from science, and in an almost barbarous state of the mechanical arts, that India owes her long supremacy in the manufacture of cotton.

One fact strikingly manifests the national character of this people. It is said that all the Indian weavers, who weave for common sale, make the woof of one end of the cloth coarser than that of the other, and attempt to sell to the unwary by the fine end, although almost every one who deals with them is perfectly aware of the circumstance; and it is, therefore, a rare chance if a single opportunity occurs to the weaver to gain by this means during the whole course of his life!

Description of the Bridge at the Niagara Falls.

The bridge across the rapids of the river Niagara is placed only two or three hundred yards from the edge of the great falls. It extends from the American bank of the river to Goat Island, which separates what is called the "American" from the "British fall." The superstructure of the bridge is formed of timber. It is 396 feet in length, and is supported on six piers, formed partly of stone and partly of wood. When I visited the falls of Niagara in the month of May, the ice carried down from Lake Erie by the rapids of the river was rushing past the piers of this bridge with

a degree of violence that was quite terrific, and seemed every moment to threaten their destruction.

The following very interesting account of this work is given by Captain Hall

"The erection of such a bridge at such a place is a wonderful effort of boldness and skill, and does the projector and artist, Judge Porter, the highest honor as an engineer. This is the second bridge of the kind; but the first being built in the still water at the top of the rapids, the enormous sheets of ice, drifted from Lake Erie, soon demolished the work, and carried it over the falls. Judge Porter, however, having observed that the ice in passing along the rapids was speedily broken into small pieces, fixed his second bridge much lower down, at a situation never reached by the larger masses of ice.

"The essential difficulty was to establish a foundation for his piers on the bed of a river covered with huge blocks of stone, and over which a torrent was dashing at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. He first placed two long beams, extending from the shore horizontally forty or fifty feet over the rapids, at the height of six or eight feet, and counterbalanced by a load at the inner ends. These were about two yards asunder; but light planks being laid across, men were enabled to walk along them in safety. Their extremities were next supported by upright bars passed through holes in the ends, and resting on the ground. A strong open frame-work of timber, not unlike a wild beast's cage, but open at top and bottom, was then placed in the water immediately under the ends of the beams. This being loaded with stones, was gradually sunk till some one part of it—no matter which-touched the rocks lying on the bottom. As soon as it was ascertained that this had taken place, the sinking operation was arrested, and a series of strong planks, three inches in thickness, were placed, one after the other, in the river, in an upright position, and touching the inner sides of the frame-work. These planks, or upright posts, were now thrust downwards till they obtained a firm lodg ment among the stones at the bottom of the river; and, being then securely bolted to the upper part of the frame-work, might be considered parts of it. As each plank reached to the ground, it acted as a leg, and gave the whole considerable stability, while the water flowed freely through openings about a foot wide, left between the planks.

"This great frame or box, being then filled with large stones tumbled in from above, served the purpose of a nucleus to a larger pier built round it, of much stronger timbers firmly bolted together, and so arranged as to form an outer case, distant from the first pier

about three feet on all its four sides. The intermediate space between the two frames was then filled up by large masses of rock. This constituted the first pier.

"A second pier was easily built in the same way, by projecting beams from the first one, as had been previously done from the shore; and so on, step by step, till the bridge reached Goat Island. Such is the solidity of these structures, that none of them has ever moved since it was first erected, several years before we saw it."

Thomas Godfrey,

The inventor of the Quadrant, was born in the year 1704, near Germantown, Pennsylvania. Losing his father when very young, and his mother marrying again, he was put out to learn the business of a painter and glazier at Stanton, a village in the neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Very little has been preserved respecting his history. From all accounts he must have been a person of considerable ingenuity. His affection for mathematics occurred at an early period from a chance opportunity of reading a book on that science. Finding the subject perplexed with Latin terms, he applied himself with such diligence as to overcome the difficulty arising from this

It is related that when Sir Isaac Newton's celebrated mathematical work made its appearance, the best scholars were obliged to study it with care, and those of a lower rank durst not venture upon it at all. The American glazier, without encouragement from any quarter, and wholly self-taught, ventured upon and mas. tered this great work at an early age, and finally, with the embarrassments of an humble trade and extreme poverty, produced one of the most useful of instruments.

There has been heretofore considerable controversy existing, as to whom belonged the honor of this invention. The conclusion now is, that Hadley and Godfrey invented their instruments nearly simultaneously and independently. While the Englishman, with every advantage of pursuit, "stumbled upon" the invention, and is honored in its name, to our countryman belongs the true glory, for his was the result of unassisted genius, acting under adverse circumstances.

Peace to his ashes: although no storied urn or monumental bust marks the spot of his repose, yet his memory will live as long as his country preserves a just sense of the merits of her sons, or the wings of commerce spread the sea.

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