COTTON GIN— LEWTON 555 



is not misinformed, it is still in existence at Mulberry Grove. But Mr. Whitney, 

 himself, from greater mechanical knowledge, or some other unknown cause, 

 deposited in the Patent Office the model with the annular saws." 



His last statement concerning the saws contradicts Dr. Thornton's 

 description and drawing of the Patent Office model. 



III. MODELS OF THE WHITNEY GIN 



Several small models of the "Cotton Cleaning Machine" were made 

 by Whitney himself, or under his direction, before 1800. Some of 

 these models are still in existence, and it is the desire of the writer to 

 record some bits of information about them before their pedigree 

 is lost. 



The most important model is now exhibited in the Textile Division 

 of the United States National Museum (pi. 2). It was deposited by 

 Eli Whitney, Jr., in December 1884 in response to a request from the 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Spencer F. Baird. In 

 transmitting the model, Mr. Whitney wrote : 



We have a model, one of 5 made by my father * * * There have been 

 2 models burnt up in the Patent Office at Washington. One in 1836 and 1 in 

 1870 odd * * *. We have sent to your address the Model Cotton Gin 

 invented and made by my father. It would have been sent before, but had to be 

 repaired and I have been confined to the house by illness for a few weeks. Please 

 have it put in a prominent position. Enclosed please find a little history of the 

 invention which you can have printed or written on a card * * *, It should 

 be of interest to every Southerner. 



He thus accounts for three of the five models mentioned in his 

 letter. Dr. Edward Craig Bates, in his Story of the Cotton Gin, 

 publishes a letter written him by Eh Whitney, Jr., in 1890. 



The photograph sent you of the Cotton Gin is from a small model, say 18 x 12, 

 made under my father's direction about ninety years ago. There are but two 

 of these models now in existence; one at the Smithsonian and the one in my 



possession.!^ 



An excellent account of the method of ginning cotton before the 

 invention of the Whitney gin, and a description of Whitney's inven- 

 tion and several models, are given by Benjamin Leonard Covington 

 Wailes, Geologist of Mississippi, in 1854. 



I have had the rare opportunity of examining critically, in all its parts, an early 

 model of the gin on a small scale constructed under Mr. Whitney's direction, 

 and which is now exhibited in the Crystal Palace, in New York. 



The model shows the progress of the invention as elaborated in the ingenious 

 mind of its author, and his first idea seems to have been that of carding the lint 

 or fiber from the seed, rather than that suggested by the use of the saw. The 

 cylinder in the model is divided into three parts; one-third of it at the left end is 

 armed with stout, crooked wires driven in, flattened at the sides, and the ends 

 brought to an edge, as shown in Plate VII, fig. 5. The middle third of the cylinder 



" Southern Agriculturist, vol. 5, p. 399, August 1832. 

 '« New England Mag., n. s., vol. 2, p. 293, May 1890, 



