Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ivii. (191 3), No. 11. 37 



letters, and ordered two ounces of bronze powder (called 

 also gold powder), but which is really only a beautiful fine 

 brass, intrinsically worth eightpence per pound. I was 

 charged fourteen shillings for my two ounces of brass 

 powder, as a result that a material known and used in 

 China and Japan for more than 1,000 years was still 

 made by a roundabout hand-process, hence its great cost. 

 I invented an elaborate series of self-acting machines and 

 manufactured it successfully. My first order was obtained 

 by my traveller from the Colebrookdale Iron Company 

 for two pounds at eighty shillings per pound net. I kept 

 the process a profound secret for about thirty-six years ; 

 it furnished me with the money necessary for pursuing 

 my many patented inventions, and then the secret leaked 

 out, prices went down and down, until I was selling the 

 same article for which I had eighty shillings a pound as 

 low as two shillings and ninepence, when I gave up the 

 manufacture. 



But I am letting my pen run away with me and 

 forgetting all about Utrecht velvet. Between forty and 

 fifty years ago I was exhibiting some specimens of cast- 

 ings from natural objects, cast in white metal, and which 

 were coated by a thin film of copper deposited thereon 

 from an acid solution of that metal. The exhibition was 

 known as " Toblisses' Museum of Arts and Manufacture," 

 which occupied the site of the present National Gallery in 

 Trafalgar Square. 



These specimens were seen and admired by Mr. Pratt, 

 an upholsterer in Bond Street, and he sought me out, 

 showing me a beautiful piece of velvet work of French 

 manufacture ; he proposed to produce a similar effect by 

 embossing Utrecht velvet. He had tried the embossers 

 of cotton velvet at Manchester, but they had utterly 

 failed. This stubborn pile would not keep down, and 

 the pattern was all gone in a {^■^ weeks. 



I studied the question both from a chemical and 

 mechanical point of view, made some experiments, and 

 found that my plan was successful. The simple fact is 

 that wool, like the hair of all animals, partakes of the 

 property of horn, and is fusible by heat, but that high 

 temperature is destructive if continued for more than a 

 second of time, and my rollers would burn the whole 

 fabric if worked too slowly. There were many details to 

 work out, and when that was done I constructed the 

 necessary machinery at my own cost and managed to 

 get six shillings a yard for all the velvet I passed through 

 the machine. The first work done by the machine was 



