WHITLOWWHITNEY. 



juiritif-, then ground in a mill, and made up into 

 small loaves, is sold under the name of whiting. 



WHITLOW, in surgery, is an inflammation af- 

 fecting one or more of the bones of the finger*, and 

 generally terminating in an abscess. In severe 

 cases, the disorder extends to many other parts' be- 

 sides the fingers, making its way above the wrist. 

 There is a similar disorder which attacks the toes. 

 Whitlows differ very much in their degree of vio- 

 lence, and in their depth and extent. Surgical wri- 

 ters usually make four or five varieties. The usual 

 exciting causes of whitlows are various external 

 injuries, as pricks, contusions, &c. The lodgment 

 of a thorn or splinter in the part is another frequent 

 cause. They are much more common in young, 

 healthy persons than in others, and, in many cases, 

 occur without our being able to assign any parti- 

 cular cause for them. 



WHITNEY, Eu, a celebrated mechanician, and 

 the inventor of the cotton gin, was born at West- 

 borough, Worcester county, Massachusetts, Dec. 

 8, 1765. His father was a respectable farmer. 

 Very earlv he gave striking indications of the me- 

 chanical genius for which he was distinguished. 

 His education was of a limited character, until he 

 had reached the age of nineteen, when he conceived 

 the idea of entering a college. Accordingly, not- 

 withstanding the opposition of his parents, he pre- 

 pared himself, partly by means of the profits of his 

 manual labour, partly by teaching a village school, 

 for the freshman class in the university of New Ha- 

 ven, which he entered, May, 1789. Soon after he 

 took his degree, in the autumn of 1792, he entered 

 into an engagement with a gentleman of Georgia, 

 to reside in his family as a private teacher. But on 

 his arrival in that state, he found that another 

 teacher had been employed, and he was left entirely 

 without resources. Fortunately, however, among 

 the passengers in the vessel in which he sailed, 

 was Mrs Greene, the widow of general Greene, 

 who had given him an invitation to spend some 

 time at her residence at Mulberry grove near Sa- 

 vannah ; and, on learning his disappointment, she 

 benevolently insisted upon his making her house his 

 home until he had prepared himself for the bar, as 

 was his intention. He had not been long in her 

 family before a complete turn was given to his 

 views. A party of gentlemen, on a visit to Mrs 

 Greene, having fallen into a conversation upon the 

 state of agriculture among them, expressed great 

 regret that there was no means of cleansing the 

 green seed cotton, or separating it from its seed, 

 remarking that until ingenuity could devise some 

 machine which would greatly facilitate the process 

 of cleansing, it was in vain to think of raising cot- 

 ton for market. " Gentlemen," said Mrs Greene, 

 " apply to my young friend Mr Whitney : he can 

 make any thing." She then conducted them to a 

 neighbouring room, where she showed them a num- 

 ber of specimens of his genius. The gentlemen 

 were next introduced to Whitney himself; and, 

 when they named their object, he replied that lie 

 had never seen either cotton or cotton seed during 

 his life. But the idea was engendered ; and it being 

 out of season for cotton in the seed, he went to Sav- 

 annah, and searched among the warehouses and boats 

 until he found a small portion of it. This he carried 

 home, and set himself to work with such rude ma- 

 terials and instruments as a Georgia plantation af- 

 forded. With these resources, however, he made 

 tools better suited to his purpose, and drew his own 

 wire, of which the teeth of the earliest gins were- 



made, which was an article not at that time to be 

 found in the market of Savannah. Mrs Greene and 

 Mr Miller, a gentleman who, having first come into 

 the family of general Greene as a private tutor, af- 

 terwards married his widow, were tlie only persons 

 admitted into his workshop, who knew in what 

 way he was employing himself. The many houis 

 he spent in his mysterious pursuits, afforded matter 

 of great curiosity, and often of raillery to the younger 

 members of the family. Near the close of the win- 

 ter, the machine was so nearly completed as to 

 leave no doubt of its success. Mrs Greene then 

 invited to her house gentlemen from different pits 

 of the state ; and on the first day after they had 

 assembled, she conducted them to a temporary 

 building which had been erected for the machine, 

 and they saw with astonishment and delight, that 

 more cotton could be separated from the seed in 

 one day, by the labour of a single hand, than could 

 be done in the usual manner in the space of many 

 months. An invention so important to the agricul- 

 tural interest (and, as it has proved, to every de- 

 partment of human industry) could not long remain 

 a secret. The knowledge of it soon spread through 

 the state ; and so great was the excitement on the 

 subject, that multitudes of persons came from all 



Juarters of it to see the machine ; but it was not 

 eemed prudent to gratify their curiosity until the 

 patent right had been secured. So determined, 

 however, were some of the populace to possess this 

 treasure, that neither law nor justice could restrain 

 them ; they broke open the building by night, and 

 carried off the machine. In this way the public 

 became possessed of the invention, and before Mr 

 Whitney could complete his model and secure his 

 patent, a number of machines were in successful ope- 

 ation, constructed with some slight deviation from 

 the original, with the hope of evading the penalty for 

 violating the patent right. A short time after tliit, 

 he entered into partnership with Mr Miller, who, 

 having considerable funds at command, proposed to 

 him to become his joint adventurer, and to be at 

 the whole expense of maturing the invention, until 

 it should be patented. If the machine succeeded 

 in its intended operation, the parties agreed to share 

 equally all the profits and advantages accruing from 

 it. The instrument of their partnership bears date 

 May 27, 1793. Immediately afterwards, Mr Whit- 

 ney repaired to Connecticut, where, as far as pos- 

 sible, he was to perfect the machine, obtain a patent 

 and manufacture and ship for Georgia such a num- 

 ber of machines as would supply the demand. On 

 the twentieth of June, 1793, he presented a peti- 

 tion for his patent to Mr Jefferson, then secretary of 

 state ; but the prevalence of the yellow fever in Phi- 

 ladelphia, at that period the seat of government, 

 prevented his concluding the business until several 

 months afterwards. We have not space sufficient 

 at our disposal to give a satisfactory detail of the 

 obstacles and misfortunes which, for a long time, 

 hindered the partners from reaping those advan- 

 tages from the invention which it should have pro- 

 cured for them, and which they had an ample right 

 to expect : and we must therefore refer our readers 

 to an excellent memoir of Mr Whitney, contained 

 in the number of the American Journal of Science 

 and Arts, conducted by professor Silliman, for Jan. 

 1832. These difficulties arose principally from the 

 innumerable violations of their patent right, by 

 which they were involved in various almost intermin- 

 able lawsuits. The legislature of SouthCarolina pur- 

 chased, in 1801, their right for that state for the suiu 



