It is 400 feet long, 64 feet broad, and contains four stories of from 16 to 13 feet high. The forge shop is 230 feet long, 53 feet wide, and 17 feet high, and contains 32 forges. The foundry is 150 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 22 feet high.

59. Holyoke-Cotton Mills.-Holyoke is a manufacturing town situated on the banks of the Connecticut river.

A short notice of its history will serve to explain the way in which manufacturing companies are established in the United States.

In 1847, a company was formed for the purpose of turning to account the water power supplied by the river Connecticut, buying up the water privileges, and purchasing land to form the site of a manufacturing town.

The company subscribed a capital of $4,000,000, and was incorporated by the State of Massachusetts in 1847.

It succeeded in obtaining the water privileges, and upwards of 11,000 acres of land, besides other tracts in the vicinity. A dam, more than 1,000 feet long, was constructed across the river, in the summer of 1849.

The site of a town has been laid out with streets from 60 to 80 feet wide, calculated for a population of 200,000 inhabitants. It contains

already upwards of 5,000 inhabitants, and it is officially stated that the average sum appropriated for the education of each child was in 1852, $3 72c.

There is a 60 feet fall of water, which can be used by two sets of mills on different levels, affording power sufficient to drive the machinery of 100 large mills.

60. Cotton Mills.-Two cotton mills employing 1,100 hands, a machine shop employing 365 hands, and a paper mill, are already at work; others are in the course of erection.

One of the mills was spinning yarns Nos. 70 and 90, and making it into cloth of excellent quality.

Self-acting mules were used, and twelve piecers were minding 13,056 spindles; three hanks per spindle were spun in a day of 11 hours.

One girl is able to weave of this yarn, on four looms, 100 yards of cloth per day. Upwards of seventy girls were brought from Scotland a short time ago.

The machinery is driven by turbine wheels.

In some mills, gearing is employed for driving the heavy shafting, but generally belts are much preferred; of these, some had a breadth of 20 inches, and were driven at the speed of nearly 1,800 yards per minute.

In some cases, in order to obtain sufficient adhesion, without having recourse to too tight a belt, the pulley is covered with leather, which is put on with white lead, and fastened with copper rivets.

61. Hosiery.-A large establishment at Waterbury is occupied exclusively in the manufacture of under-vests and drawers. The cloth waistbands of the latter are stitched by sewing ma chines, working at the rate of 430 stitches per minute. These machines have been worked with entire success for the last eighteen months.

No

The manufactured goods and the sewing machines are all that are shown to visitors. stranger is ever permitted to see the hosiery looms; workmen, directors, and president, all enter into a bond not to disclose anything connected with the machinery of the company.

62. Shirt Making by Machinery, Newhaven.In a shirt manufactory at Newhaven, entire shirts, excepting only the gussets, are sewn by sewing machines.

By the aid of these machines one woman can do as much work as from twelve to twenty hand The workwomen work by the piece, and are frequently able to finish their estimated day's work by 2 o'clock, and, when busy, work overtime.

sewers.

63. New Cotton Gin.-This gin has, instead of saws, a card cylinder 8 or 9 inches in diameter, covered with coarse wire teeth, with considerably more bend or hook than the ordinary card tooth. The cylinder revolves against a spirallyfluted cast-iron roller, the tooth being about inch, and the space between the teeth 3 inch broad.

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To save the expense of turning and fluting the roller, it is cast in lengths of about 6 inches, which are bored and turned at the ends, and then put together, the tooth and space being left as they are cast.

In contact with the card cylinder, a cylindrical brush, 28 inches diameter, is made to revolve. The card cylinder makes 200 revolutions, the fluted stripper 400 in a contrary direction, and the cylindrical brush 800 revolutions per minute.

When the raw cotton is introduced with its seeds between the card cylinder and the stripper (which are placed just so far apart as to stop the seeds from passing), the hooked teeth of the card take hold of the fibres and pull them from the seed, which is held up against the roller as long as any fibres cling to it for the card teeth to hold by the seeds are then released, and fall to the ground. The spirally-fluted roller causes

the position of the seed and cotton to be continually changing.

The cotton fibres, as they are taken round by the teeth of the card cylinder, are brushed off by the rapid revolution of the cylindrical brush, and carried to the bin.

The machine is about 60 inches wide, and can gin 1,500 lbs. of cotton per day. Its cost is $350 (701.).

CHAPTER IX.

RAILWAYS-RAILWAY CARRIAGES-LARGE FOUR

MASTED SHIP-FIRE

ENGINES.

COMPANIES FIRE

64. Railways.—In the construction of railways, economy and speedy completion are the points which have been specially considered. It is the general opinion that it is better to extend the system of railways as far as possible at once, and be satisfied, in the first instance, with that quality of construction which present circumstances admit of, rather than to postpone the execution of work so immediately beneficial to