556 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



is provided with a similar arrangement of wires, not flattened as in tlie first, but 

 pointed as in fig. 4. And the remainder of the cj'linder is mounted with the 

 circular saw rags, similar to those now in use." [See pi. 3.] 



Wailes' description of tliis model, with its three kinds of teeth, fits 

 perfectly the model now in the National Museum. The model men- 

 tioned by Eli Wiiitney, Jr., in his letter to Mr. Bates as being "retained 

 by me" was publicly exhibited in 1886 during the celebration of the 

 centenary of the town of Hampden, Conn.,^" and was placed in the 

 Museum of the New Haven Colony Historical Society by Miss Eliza- 

 beth Day Wiiitney, about 1926, after the death of her father, Eli 

 Whitney, 3d, where it is now. The writer examined this model in 

 July 1937 and found it to be almost identical in shape and size with the 

 one in the National Museum, except the 15 annular rows of teeth on 

 the cylinder, wliich are all of wire, bent and sharp-pointed like those 

 described by Wailes. 



To keep the record straight for future investigators of this subject, 

 I wish here to record that, according to a letter from Prof. Joseph 

 Wickham Roe, "a Chinese copy" of this model in New Haven was made 

 in 1936 under his direction for the Museum of Science and Industry 

 in New York City. 



Another model of the "Wiiitney gin of the same size and materials 

 as the one first described is also in the collection of the National 

 Museum. This model was among the collection of 155,000 patent 

 models placed in storage by the United States Patent Office in 1908 

 and dispersed in 1926 in accordance mth an Act of Congress. It was 

 retained for the National Museum by this author, along with several 

 thousand models of other patents. The model appears to be of a later 

 date than the two other similar models, constnicted on the same scale, 

 already mentioned. It certainly was not constructed by Eli Whitney, 

 Sr., for it shows a mechanical defect that ho would never have passed. 

 The crank for operating the model is attached to the end of the brush 

 cylinder, instead of the cylinder carrying the gin teeth, which moves 

 at only one-sixth of the speed of that of the brush cj'hnder. In the 

 Record Room of the Patent Office are two lai^e sheets of original 

 drawings made in 1840 which exhibit the details of the above-men- 

 tioned model, including the crank in the wrong position. It does not 

 seem possible to tell whether the model was made from the drawing, or 

 vice versa. 



According to the numbering of the small detail drawings on the two 

 sheets, there should be a third sheet, as figures 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 

 17, 18, and 19, are missing. This discrepancy was pointed out by 

 Bennett in 1933.^1 [See pi. 4.] 



" Report on the Agriculture and Qeology of Mississippi, pp. 159-160, 1854. 



"« Hampden Centenary, 1786-1836, pp. 112, 281, 1886. 



»i Bennett, Clias., Cotton and Cotton Oil News, vol. 34, p. 6. Apr. 1, 1933. 



I 



