the market prices of cotton twist were fixed by Arkwright, all other spinners conforming to his scale. The same quality of this article which now sells for 3s. per pound, sold in 1790 for ten times that price, and was as high as 17. 18s. per pound; and although a great part of this difference is, no doubt, owing to a progressive economy attained in the processes of manufacture, it is not difficult to imagine that the larger price must have been exceedingly profitable to the spinner.'

Meanwhile, Arkwright had almost built the town of Cromford, in a deep valley on the south bank of the Derwent. The structures are chiefly of excellent gritstone procured in the neighborhood; and here Arkwright lived in patriarchal prosperity amidst the scenes of industry where he raised up his own fortune. The mills are to this day supplied from a never-failing spring of warm water, which also proves to be of great advantage to the canal in severe seasons, as it rarely freezes, in consequence of a portion of the water from this spring flowing into it. The mill engraved on the adjoining page is a spacious building near the upper end of the Dale: its operations have been elegantly described by Dr. Darwin, in his Botanic Garden,-" a work which discovers the art, hitherto unknown, of clothing in poetical language, and decorating with beautiful imagery, the unpoetical operations of mechanical processes, and the dry detail of manufactures:"

"Where Derwent guides his dusky floods,
Through vaulted mountains, and a night of woods,
The nymph Gossypia treads the velvet sod,
And warms with rosy smiles the watery god;
His ponderous oars to slender spindles turns,
And pours o'er massy wheels his foaming urns;
With playful charms her hoary lover wins,

And wheels his trident, while the Monarch spins.
First, with nice eye emerging Naiads cull
From leathery pods the vegetable wool;
With wiry teeth revolving cards release

The tangled knots, and smooth the ravell'd fleece;
Next moves the iron hand with fingers fine,
Combs the wide card, and forms th' eternal line;
Slow with soft lips the whirling can acquires
The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires;
With quicken'd pace successive rollers move,
And these retain, and those extend, the rove;
Then fly the spokes, the rapid axles glow;

While slowly circumvolves the lab'ring wheel below."

Nor was Cromford benefited only by the ingenuity of its founder in a commercial sense; for, having obtained the grant of a market for the town, he commenced building a chapel of freestone, which has since been completed by his son. He liberally contributed to educational and other charities. In 1786, he was appointed high

sheriff of Derbyshire, and, on the occasion of presenting an address of congratulation to the king on his escaping the attempt at assassination by Margaret Nicholson, Mr. Arkwright received the honor of knighthood. Though a man of great personal strength, during the whole of his active career he was laboring under a very severe asthma. Yet, to the latest period of his life, Sir Richard continued to give unremitted attention to business, and superintended the daily operations of his large establishments, adding from time to time such improvements to the machinery as were suggested by experience and observation. He sank, at length, under a compli cation of disorders, accelerated, if not produced, by his sedentary habits, and died in his house at Cromford, on August 3, 1792, in the sixtieth year of his age, leaving behind him a fortune estimated at little short of half a million.

The death of Sir Richard Arkwright was a sorrowful event to all classes of this district. His funeral was conducted with fitting splendor. Mr. Malcolm, the antiquarian, was entering Matlock from Chesterfield, at the time when the procession was passing to Matlock church, where the body was first interred; he says" as the ground I was on was much higher than the Tor, or any of the hills at Matlock, I was at once surprised and delighted with the grand and awful scene that expanded below me; all the rich profusion of wild nature thrown together in an assemblage of objects the most sublime. To heighten the view, the Tor, and rocks near it, were covered with crowds of people. . . . . The road was nearly impassable, from the crowds of people who had assembled to witness the procession. The ceremony was conducted with much pomp, and, as nearly as I can remember, was thus: a coach and four with the clergy; another with the pall-bearers; the hearse, covered with escutcheons, and surrounded by mutes, followed; then the horse of the deceased, led by a servant; the relations, and about fifteen or twenty carriages, closed the procession, which was nearly half a mile in length. The evening was gloomy, and the solemn stillness that reigned was only interrupted by the rumbling of the carriages, and the gentle murmurs of the river; and, as they passed, the echo of the Tor gently returned the sound. The scene was so rich and uncommon that I continued to gaze till a turn in the road closed the whole. How greatly would the effect have been heightened by a choir chanting a dirge!"

The body was subsequently removed to Cromford chapel, wherein is the family vault of the Arkwrights, with a beautiful monument by Chantrey.

The character of Sir Richard Arkwright is one upon which we could linger with untiring interest; so fine a specimen was he of

genius, industry, and perseverance: he was, indeed, one of the honorables of the land. In the Encyclopædia Britannica, it is truly remarked: "No man ever better deserved his good fortune, or has a stronger claim on the respect and gratitude of posterity. His inventions have opened a new and boundless field of employment; and while they have conferred infinitely more real benefit on his native country than she could have derived from the absolute dominion of Mexico and Peru, they have been universally productive of wealth and enjoyments."

The most marked traits of Arkwright were his wonderful ardor, energy, and perseverance. He commonly labored in his multifarious concerns from five o'clock in the morning till nine at night; and that, too, when considerably more than fifty years of age. Feeling that his defects of education placed him under great difficulty and inconvenience in conducting his correspondence, and in the general management of his business, he encroached upon his sleep, in order to gain an hour each day to learn English grammar, and another hour to improve his writing and orthography. He was impatient of whatever interfered with his favorite pursuits; and the fact is too strikingly characteristic not to be mentioned, that he separated from his wife not many years after their marriage, because she, convinced that he would starve his family by scheming when he should be shaving, broke some of his experimental models of machinery. He was a severe economist of time; and, that he might not waste a moment, generally travelled with four horses at full speed. His concerns in Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Scotland were so extensive and numerous, as to show at once his astonishing power of transacting business. Indeed, his schemes were vast and daring, as his talents were great and his industry indefatigable.

Thus it was from a poor barber he raised himself to what he eventually became-not merely to rank and great affluence, but to be the founder of a new branch of national industry, destined, in a wonderfully short space of time, to assume the very first place among the manufactures of his country. So great has been its increase, that it has been calculated that, while the number of persons in his native country, previous to his inventions, who were employed in the cotton manufacture, did not probably amount to thirty thousand, the number now engaged in its different departments can hardly be less than a million. Yet, in some branches of the business, it has been stated, the spinning in particular, such is the economy of labor introduced by the use of machinery, that one man and four children will spin as much yarn as was spun by six hundred women and girls, seventy years ago!

M. GUINAND

ABOUT eighty years have elapsed, since this interesting man was employed in assisting his father, as a joiner, in a remote village among the mountains of Neufchatel, in Switzerland. His parent must have been in very indifferent circumstances, as his son was thus engaged when only ten years of age. His early education was much neglected; indeed, he never acquired more than an imperfect knowledge of the first rudiments of learning, always reading with difficulty, and writing very imperfectly. He must, even at this early period, have been a lad of considerable talent, and of a disposition that urged him to the exertion requisite for raising his condition in society. We find him, when between thirteen and fourteen years old, having quitted the employment of a joiner for that of a cabinetmaker, chiefly engaged in making cases for clocks.

At this period he became acquainted with a buckle maker, who lived in the neighborhood, and of whom he learned the art of casting, and working in various metals, which enabled him about the age of twenty, after once witnessing the process, to attempt the construction of a watch case; having succeeded, he adopted the occupation of a watch-case maker, which was then very lucrative.

Having constructed clock cases for M. Jaquet Droz, the well known constructor of several automaton figures, which fifty years ago made the tour of Europe, he had an opportunity of seeing, at the house of that celebrated mechanist, a very fine English reflecting telescope, which appeared to him extremely curious and interesting. These instruments were very rare at that time in Switzerland, especially among the mountains. M. Guinand was then in his twentieth or twenty-third year, and it cannot be doubted that this circumstance, in itself unimportant, first turned his mind towards that subject, to which, encouraged by success, he afterwards more particularly devoted himself.

Be that as it may, having expressed a wish to be allowed to take to pieces this telescope, that he might examine it in detail, M. Jaquet Droz, who had noticed his dexterity, kindly gave him permission, and with equal good-nature relieved him from his apprehension of being unable to put it together again, by taking that task upon himself, if it should prove too difficult for him. Thus encouraged, he took the instrument to pieces, accurately measured the curves of the reflectors and glasses, and afterwards readily