314 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



were so exactly alike, that the smallest screw or spring fitted 

 for one, is equally fitted for any and every other. These im- 

 provements were introduced against much skepticism and 

 many obstacles, into all the public and private armories of the 

 Union ; and it is mainly owing to Whitney that the manufac- 

 ture of arms by this government, is unsurpassed in any public 

 armories in the world. There is, perhaps, no exhibition in the 

 manufacture of metals, that is more beautiful and exciting, 

 than that furnished in the armories at Springfield and Harper's 

 Ferry, and it is Eli Whitney to whom these improvements are 

 owing. It was admitted by a former Secretary of War, in 

 conversation with Mr. Whitney, that the annual saving, years 

 ago, at the public armories, in consequence of Whitney's im- 

 provements, was more than $25,000 a year. It was from this 

 business that Whitney derived the greater portion of the estate 

 which he accumulated ; but it is believed that this estate 

 amounted to hardly more than he enabled his country to save, 

 at this moment, in her armories, in a single year. 



These improvements are not necessarily confined to the 

 manufacture of arms, but are applicable, and have been ap- 

 plied to the working of metals of every kind, and Whitney's 

 memorials may be said to exist in every machine-shop in the 

 land. 



The incidental benefits conferred by him upon the entire 

 circle of the mechanic arts, and the interests connected with 

 them, are not lightly to be esteemed. The elevation of these 

 arts, and of those connected with them, in the estimation of 

 the public, by the devotion to their advancement of so high a 

 genius, and by the manifest demonstration of the fact, that the 

 highest and most thorough mastery of science strengthens 

 rather than weakens the hand of art, are felt, after the man 

 who has exerted these influences is gone, and form no incon- 

 siderable item in the sum total of the good which he has con- 



