Who shall estimate the importance to the world of the future cottonfields of the Montana of the Andes, yielding as they will large and unfailing supplies of that indispensable commodity? The commerce of the world is yet in its infancy.

The question will now naturally arise, "How shall our country avail itself of this boundless wealth? Here is a country endowed by its Creator with inexhaustible resources for the benefit of mankind. He has furrowed it in every direction with large rivers to render it convenient of approach. There is no want of energy among our countrymen, and they need only the stimulus of prospective remuneration to induce them to enter on this profitable field. Every one remembers through what fearful periis and sufferings the earlier emigrants to California passed to reach that land of gold. Nothing but the discovery of the precious metal drew them thither. But the Providence, which designed to employ that new State for impor tant ends, bearing on the welfare of Eastern Asia and the islands of the Pacific, concealed the mineral wealth of the land, until in the fullness of time its sovereignty had passed to the most enterprising of nations. Then the secret treasures were revealed, and immediately, in defiance of all dangers and hardships, the region was settled. So will it be with the Montana of the Andes. Not that the sovereignty of the land shall ever be wrested from its rightful owners; but as soon as Brazil shall consent, a friendly international commerce will spring up, to the advantage of all who engage it. The only difficulty in the way of entering at once on this new avenue of trade is the restricticn which Brazil has placed on the navigation of the Amazon and its tributaries, which is at present forbidden to foreign vessels. It is believed that this obstacle can be easily removed by negotiation with the Brazilian Government; for the reigning Emperor is known to be a man of large national views, earnestly desirous to promote the rapid development of the resources of his Empire, in which work he will receive the ready and sympathizing co-operation of the new liberal Parliament, assembled in January of the present year. The Brazilians themselves are a very enterprising people, and are better disposed than ever before to enlarge their business intercourse with the United Statesa feeling strongly confirmed by the recent exasperating conduct of England.

Such an opening of the numerous and noble rivers of South America, hitherto almost useless to the world, would practically bring to our doors the vast wealth of that continent. It would tend also to the rapid elevation of its great States, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil. Should our countrymen become the pioneers in this enterprise, this would give us that advantage over Europe in international influence and importance to which we regard ourselves entitled, and of which, when once fully established, we shall probably never be deprived. It may come to pass that the muchvexed Monroe Doctrine may yet receive its practical solution in the Montana of the Andes.

THE COTTON MANUFACTURE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

BY LEONE LEVI, PROFESSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF COMMERCE IN KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON, ETC.

[Prepared from a Paper read before the Statistical Society of London.] No district of the United Kingdom exhibits more conspicuously the great phenomena of British industry, or the great secret of British wealth, than that which has become, alas, so prominent for its sufferings and privations. The theme suggested by this great hive of industry, may indeed engage our deepest thought and reflection. There coal and iron supersede turf and corn, which render the aspect of the country as dingy as the entrance of Hades. Illumined factories with more windows than Italian palaces, and smoking chimneys taller than Egyptian obelisks constitute the glories of the district. Everywhere you find monuments of indomitable energy. All you see indicates the march of modern progress. Enter for a moment one of those numerous factories; behold the ranks of thousand operatives all steadily working; behold how every minute of time, every yard of space, every practised eye, every dexterous finger, every inventive mind, is at high-pressure service. There are no lumber attics nor lumber cellars; everything is cut out for its work and the work for it, And what could be more wonderful than those factories for the manufacture of machines. Listen to the deafening din. What power has mind over matter! What metamorphosis can human industry perform; and how much has this mighty agent changed the entire character of Lancashire. See how thickly it is filled with cities and towns. In Northumberland there are 208,000 square miles for each town. In Lancashire only 26,000. And how close the inhabitants. In Westmorland there are 19 square miles for each inhabitant. In Lancashire 0.97 only. One hundred years ago Manchester had only 1,600 inhabitants; now with Salford she has more than 450,000 people.* Three hundred years ago Liverpool was only a fishing hamlet with 138 inhabitants; now she has also 450,000. The entire county of Lancashire, in 1692, was returned for the land tax at a value of £97,000; in 1860 she was assessed to the property tax at a value

*The increase of population in the county of Lancaster was strikingly demonstrated in the last census for 1861. Except in the two mining counties of Durham and Monmouthshire, where the increase has been even greater, the rate of increase in Lancashire during the last sixty years has been larger than in any other county in England.

of £11,500,000. Whence this magic increase? Principally from the cotton trade and manufacture.

It is in Manchester, too, that the steam Hercules whose power dwarfs the fabled feats of the Grecian prodigy, first exhibited his youthful strength, grew up in vigor and skill, and still manifests his gigantic maturity. This system of industry is comparatively of modern creation-history throws but little light upon its nature, for it has scarcely begun to recognize its existence; and the philosophy of the schools supplies scarcely any help for estimating its results, because an innovating power of such immense force could never have been anticipated. The steam-engine had no precedent, the tall and ever-smoking chimneys had no parallel in times past, the spinning jenny is without ancestry, and the mule and power-loom entered in no recognised heritage. There they are even in their present temporary prostration-an overflowing stream of opulence and power, a wonder to ourselves, and to the world.

Cotton is not a new article. All warm climates, within * a limited zone, especially those in the vicinity of the sea, produce cotton. From time immemorial cotton has been grown in Hindoostan, China, Persia, Egypt, Candia, and Sicily, and when South America was discovered, the natives were found growing cotton. Yet, as it has been well said, cotton could only become an

* The vegetable which we now call cotton passed under different names in different times and countries. The term Carbasus, Carbasum, or Kapradov, was used by ancient authors to signify cotton. It is so used in the Scripture. The word carpas in Esther i, 6, though translated in the common version for "green," means really cotton. In the Vulgate translation, we have "et carbasini ac hyacinthini." In Revelations xviii, 12, the word Buddog, mentioned as one of the wares of Babylon, may mean cotton. But after the fourth century, cotton was known by various names which had not been before in use. Probably gossypium was one of these; another name was Lana Xylena, meaning literally tree wool, the plants which produced it being called wool trees. Another set of names probably arose from a misapplication of the name of the silk-worm. These were bambacinus, made of cotton; bambacenium, cotton cloth; bambacarius, a dealer in cotton cloth; and in Italian, bambagino, and bambasino. For further researches on the introduction of cotton, see "Textrinum Antiquorum, an Account of the Art of Weaving among the Ancients," by James Yates, F. R. S.

article of trade to those nations which were able, by their industries, to manufacture it into beautiful and durable material, at moderate prices. The manufacture of vegetable substances, combining flexibility and strength, must be of very early date, and to the inhabitants of the temperate and tropic zones especially, the great weight and toughness of skins, must have made patent the advantage of any material which could be made of the necessary strength, and at the same time light and flexible. In ancient times India furnished Europe with her muslins, so called from Mosul, in Mesopotamia. The Assyrian merchants brought such cotton manufactures into Europe, together with their silks from China, their carpets from Persia, and their spices from the East. Herodotus, writing in the year 445 before the Christian era, said of the Indi, "the wild trees bear fleeces for their fruit, surpassing those of the sheep in beauty and excellence, and the natives clothe themselves in cloths made therefrom." From India the manufacture reached Persia, thence it was imported into Egypt, and the eight century saw its introduction into Europe.

In England for a long time the consumption of cotton was confined to small quantities, principally for candlewicks, and nearly the whole of the cotton fabrics consumed was imported from the Continent. Though as far back as 1328 the Flemings settling in Manchester laid the basis of the British wool manufacture, in the manufacture of what were called Manchester cottons, it was not till the middle of the seventeenth century that cottonwoollens, fustians, dimities, and other articles were exported to the Continent. But as late as the accession of George III., no fabric consisting entirely of cotton was made, and it was only by the operation of those wonderful inventions which suddenly performed so great a revolution, that cotton acquired the present prominent position as an article of trade in this country. What these inventions were every one well knows: yet there is great interest in recalling those feats of genius which now and then ennoble our common humanity.

Spinning by the spindle and distaff is a very old industry, and in times not far distant, was considered one of the accomplishments of a good wife. "She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff," is the saying of the Book of Proverbs. Minerva, as the instructress of man in the useful arts, is fabled as the author of a distaff and spindle; hence, as Apollodorus informs us the Palladium held in its right hand a spear, and a distaff and spindle in the left. It was the custom among the Romans to carry before the bride a distaff charged with flax, and a spindle likewise furnished. In Greece, when the bride was introduced to her new home, she brought with her a distaff and spindle, and hung her husband's door with woollen yarn; and in England spinning on the distaff continued long to be the honored occupation of women. In process of time the distaff was laid aside for the spinning wheel invented by Jurgen, a citizen of Brunswick, in 1530, though some say that it was known long before him. But though by the spinning wheel there were formed the thick loose cord called a roving, and the fine thread or yarn, this invention was not attended

*

* See an able paper on the Distaff and the Spindle, or the Insignia of the Female Sex in Former Times, by John Yonge Akerman, F. S. A., “Archeologia, or Miscel laneous Tracts relating to Antiquity," published by the Society of Antiquaries, vol. xxxvii., p. 83.

with great results, because the spinner could only produce one thread at a time, and a man employed eight hours a day could only spin three-quarters of a pound of yarn. The first substantial improvement was therefore a machine for spinning by rollers, which forms the basis of all the spinning machinery in our factories at the present time, invented by Wyatt, but for which a patent was taken by Lewis Paul, a foreigner; but even that led to no immediate results, as it was scarcely understood at the time. Then came the invention of the fly shuttle and the picking peg, which enabled one man, unaided, to weave double the quantity he had theretofore done; and in 1753 Mr. Lawrence Earnshaw invented a spinning machine and cotton reel, but which he himself destroyed, on the plea that it would be the ruin of the working classes. Although these and other minor improvements were for the time barren of results, and were far from proving lucrative to the inventors themselves, they prepared the mind of the people for further changes, and suggested those ideas which eventually ended in totally superseding manual labor in the cotton industry.

Ten years after this a reed maker of Leigh, a certain Thomas Wright, found out the principle of the spinning jenny, or a machine by which the spinner was enabled to produce several threads in one operation, and in the following year, in 1764, James Hargreaves gave reality to such a machine, and patented it. For this, however, he was attacked by a mob of the working people, who broke into his house and destroyed the jenny. Great as was the improvement introduced by the spinning jenny, it still left the process of spinning in a very unsatisfactory state, the cotton not being sufficiently even, firm, or strong for use, as the warp or longitudinal thread of a web. To supply this want, linen yarn was used for the warp, but the mixture of two different materials made the article too costly, and, moreover, unfit for calico printing. Such was the condition of the cotton manufacture in England when Arkwright invented the water frame, How far he may have profited of the earlier invention of Lewis Paul, of elongating cotton by rollers in the spinning operation, we know not; but what if he did? The law of continuity, or rather of gradual progress, says Lord Brougham, governs all human approaches towards perfection. The limited nature of man's faculties precludes the possibility of his ever reaching at once the utmost excellence of which they are capable. Survey the whole circle of the sciences, and trace the history of our progress in each, you will find this to be the universal rule. Think not that Black and Priestly, Bacon and Adam, Smith, Cuvier, and Watt were respectively the unaided discoverers of the theory of latent heat, and of aeriform fluids, of the inductive system, of economic science, of fossil osteology, and of the power of steam. Even Newton, though far in advance of all others in mathematical and in experimental science, was preceded by Cavalleri, Roberval, Fermat, and Schooten, who came as near as possible to the discovery of the differential calculus. Very romantic is the story of Sir Richard Arkwright. Fancy a barber, famous only for his processes for dyeing hair, becoming the founder of the great cotton manufacture. Even after the fruitful idea entered his mind, he could not appear at an election in Preston for want of a suit of clothing. Arkwright's water frame, while drawing out the carding or rolling, gave to it the twist and pressure necesary to produce the hardness and firmness which fitted it so admirably to the purposes of the warp; and it was at the same time capable of producing, in equal vast quantities, yarns