ON THE COTTON GIN. 281 



thirty degrees so that the feeder may the more easily throw 

 the cotton in the seed by the handful upon a wire grating that 

 projects two inches in advance of the rollers, just below them ; 

 between these projecting wires, the feeding-boards, with 

 strong iron, or in preference, brass teeth pass, lifting the cotton 

 from the wire grating, and offering it to the revolving rollers. 

 The feeders should make one revolution to every four revolu- 

 tions of the rollers. The rollers are carried forward by wheels 

 supported over the gin, and upon the axle or shaft of these 

 rollers ; at the center there is a crank similar to a saw-mil] 

 crank, the diameter of whose revolvement is as one to four ot 

 the diameter of the wheels, carrying by bands the rollers. 



It is the crimping produced by the teeth and the wire grat- 

 ing, which has served as a cause for carping by the cotton- 

 buyers, and which has gradually led to the disuse of these 

 gins, the only gin efficient for the cleaning of long cotton, 

 which has ever been used in this or any other country. With 

 Mr. Eve's gin, as originally sent to this country from the 

 Bahamas, the rollers were five-eighths of an inch in diameter, 

 made of stopper wood, a very hard and tough wood, and they 

 were graduated to make four hundred and eighty to five hun- 

 dred revolutions per minute, depending of course upon the gait 

 of the horses or mules, within these limits. Soon after Mr. 

 Eve first sent his gins to Georgia, some of his own workmen 

 followed them, and began to make them on their own account. 

 To show as much change as possible in the gins, beside the 

 other alterations, they increased the size of the rollers, they 

 increased the size of the rollers to three-fourths of an inch, 

 and increased its velocity to six hundred times in the minute. 

 These two changes, while they greatly increased the quantity 

 ginned, very much injured the appearance of the ginned cot- 

 ton. Mr. Eve had expected and guaranteed to the purchasers 

 of his gins when well attended, in fine weather, from two 



