MACHINERY-MANUFACTURING IN DUSTRY IN AMERICA. Owing to the re strictive measures of Great Britain this indus try made a late start in America; but when a beginning was made, the very laws by which the mother-country sought to make the States de pendent- on her proved more stimulating to the development of our machinery-manufacturing industry than the most rigid system of protec tive tariff would have been. Great Britain wished to confine manufactures to her shores and compel the American colonists to buy their manufactured articles from English factories. At first the colonists were not allowed either to manufacture or to import machinery. In the year 1774 a statute was enacted by Parliament instituting the restrictive system as to textile machinery. This statute was made more strkt gent in 1781, and it was not actually repealed till 1845. This act prohibited the expor tation of °any machine, engine, tool, press, paper, utensil, or implement whatever, which now is, or may at any time be, used in or proper for the preparing, working, pressing, finishing, or completing of the linen, cotton, wool or silk manufactures of this kingdom, or any other goods wherein wool, silk, or cotton is used, or any part of such machine, etc., or any model or plan of any such machine,) tinder penalty of forfeiture of the tools or machine, the payment of a fine of £200 and imprisonment for one year. Further, foreigners were prohibited, under a penalty of f500 and imprisonment for 12 months, "froth seducing artificers, and others employed in the manufactories, to depart out of this kingdom; and if any artificer has promised or contracted to go into foreign parts to practise or teach his trade, such artificer may be obliged to give security, at the discretion of the court, that he shall not go beyond the seas, and may be committed to prison until he give such security.) These laws were rigidly enforced; and it was seldom that they were evaded. It was im possible even to smuggle a textile machine into this country; and the models that were surrepti tiously imported were imperfect. Tenth Coxe, the coadjutor of Alexander Hamilton in the Treasury Department, made arrangements to have models of Arkwright's patents sent to him; but. before they could be shipped they were detected and forfeited. In 1786 the Gen.. eral Court of Massachusetts appointed a joint committee to investigate textile machinery; and this led later to the employment of Samuel Sla ter and to the real beginning of machinery‘ manufacture in this country. Slater landed• at New York 17 Nov. 1789; and in the following January he made arrangements with Messrs. Brown and Almy, of Providence, R. I., to con struct for them textile machinery on the. Eng lish plan. He made most of the machinery with his own hands and set it up at Pawtucket R. I. This was the first textile mill in this country to use the Arkwright system. It was opened 20 Dec. 1790. It must be remembered that Slater brought with him from England no implements to work with, and no plans or models. He had to depend entirely upon his memory. Alexander Hamilton called him tithe father of American manufactures); but, in the first place, he was the father of American machinery. Up to the time of his coming there were no machines in this country, with the ex ception of the rude saw-mill, grist-mill and fulling-mill; some rolling and slitting mills, foot-lathes, and a few home-made carding and spinning appliances. The first carding-machine worked in the United States was constructeg at Newburyport, Mass., in 1793, by John an
Arthur Scofield. Until then the household looms were the only domestic source of supply of woolen cloth.
At this time the manufacture of metal work ing machinery was in its infancy. The lathe was known only in its simplest form, i.e., two dead centres supporting the work as• it was rotated backward and forward by a band around it, one end attached to a spring-pole above it, the other end to the foot of the oper ator, who held the turning-tool in his hand. Even after the lathe had been provided with a revolving spindle and centre to support and rotate the work, the tools used for turning both wood and iron were still manipulated by hand. The increasing demand for accurately-cut cylin drical iron pieces, which could not be made by hand, led to the general use of the Formerly used only by the optician and the maker of mathematical instruments, it now be came a necessary adjunct of the mechanic's lathe. This gave the lathe practically unlimited capacity to turn out exact cylindrical work ; but in order for the slide-rest to do its work, it had to be manipulated by the workman. The next step was naturally the introduction of the slide lathe, by which the rotation of the work and the advance of the cutting tool are accomplished automatically. Owing to the lack of suitable tools to make the long flat surfaces required in such a machine, the had a curious development. The hammer, file, cold-chisel and straight edge were the only tools at hand. The planing-machine was the development of a de mand for greater accuracy in the slide-rest. It worked an era in the life of the machinist as great as that of the slide-rest itself. It is doubtful when the first planing-machine was made in the United States; but we know that there were only four such machines in this country in 1838. With this machine the rough and uneven surfaces of castings could be smoothed and reduced to true planes. Up to this time the drill had been limited to a revolv ing vertical spindle. The boring-mill or verti cal lathe was now possible and took its place in the machine-shop for the execution of a large class of turned work that did not require to he supported on centres, such as wheels to be keyed upon their shafts. In fact, the first de velopment of the was the key seating machine. It was soon recognized that such a machine could be turned to other work, and further changes were made accordingly. It was provided with compound slide-rests, with a revolvable table mounted thereon and in this form it took its place as a standard tool in the machine-shop under the name of the slot ting-machine. This planer, with its vertically movable tool, was the progenitor of a machine with similar attachments, but with its tool mov ing horizontally, upon which work could be conveniently shaped in a great variety of forms; and the shaping-machine, as it was called, soon became one of the standard tools of the machine-shop. Meanwhile, the old vertical spindle drill, with its compound tables, movable vertically and adjustable horizontally, in two directions at right angles with each other, had been supplemented by the horizontal drill, with similar tables, but with its drill-spindle parallel to the tables; and the further requirements in this direction had been supplied by the radial drill, in which the vertical drill-spindle is mov able about a vertical axis, to which it is adjust able radially.