MEMOIR OF DAXIEL TREADWELL. 367 



Permit me, however, to express to yon, sir, mv sense of the increased value which this invita- 

 tion derives from the high sonrce in which it originated, and to assure yon that amongst my 

 most pleasant recollections will be that of having received from you this mark of consid- 

 eration. 



I am, sir, with sincere respect, your obedient servant, 



Daniel Treapwell. 



In 1829, Mr. Treadwell delivered a short course of lectures to the under- 

 graduates and to the students of Harvard University generally, on subjects of 

 engineering and practical mechanics, including the steam-engine and railways. 

 As may be supposed, the last two subjects received full attention. The railway 

 was in its infancy, and the desire was great to learn the method of its construc- 

 tion. The connection of the steam-engine with the railway, as a motive power, 

 was not then thought of in this country ; but the work that the stationary engine 

 was doing in the coal districts of England was well known, as well as the success 

 with which it was used on the steamboats of our rivers. The method of road- 

 making was explained, and the force required to draw wagons over roads of dif- 

 ferent materials, in different conditions, illustrated with well-contrived apparatus, 

 some of which was placed at the service of the government of the College by the 

 Boston Mechanics' Institution, where it had been used b}' Mr. Treadwell in the 

 several courses he had delivered there. Tlie course before the undergraduates 

 was repeated in ISoO. 



In 1829. he received from Harvard University the honorary degree of Master 

 of Arts. His diploma describes him as " Virum Clarissimum Danielem Treadwell 

 doctrina et artibus liberalibus omnibusque generosi animi affectibus imbutum." 



Mr. Treadwell had now entered upon that period of his life when his inventive 

 faculties were never more vigorous ; he was thirty-eight years of age ; he had 

 studied carefully many of the operations in the trades performed by hand labor, and 

 various machines of the useful arts, with a view to transfer the former to machines, 

 or so to modify the latter that their products might be improved in quality at a 

 diminished cost, which is the true measure of utility. Rope-making was then one 

 of the operations performed almost exclusively by hand labor, or with machinery 

 of the simplest kind, which had remained unchanged almost from the infancy of 

 the art. He says, in the Autobiography : — 



'■ It was this year, 1828, that I completed my first imperfect machine for spinning hemp 

 for rope-making. This subject took up tlie greatest part of my time from 1828 to 1835. seven 

 years, and comprised inventions that formed the subjects of five different operations, and 



