HIS LIFE AND WORK 



of the printery. The original manuscript was 

 preserved; but the labor of rebuilding his fac- 

 tory prevented him from carrying out his original 

 design. He wholly forgot his authorship in the 

 troubles of his city; and so his own story of his 

 invention lay untouched among the private 

 papers of the family for thirty-eight years. 



"Robert McCormick," says this document, 

 "being satisfied that his principle of operation 

 could not succeed, laid aside and abandoned the 

 further prosecution of his idea." He had 

 labored for fifteen years to make a Reaper that 

 would reap, and he had failed. 



At this point Cyrus took up the work that 

 his father had reluctantly abandoned. He had 

 never seen or heard of any Reaper experiments 

 except those of his father; but he believed he saw 

 a better way, and "devoted himself most labori- 

 ously to the discovery of a new principle of 

 operation." 



He showed his originality at the outset by 

 beginning where his father and all other Reaper 

 inventors had left off, with the cutting of grain 

 that lay in a fallen and tangled mass. He faced 



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