AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



expensive. But in 1793 the American, Eli Whitney, 

 invented his cotton-gin, an implement which in its 

 revolutionary effects has been little inferior to gun- 

 powder itself. 



Whitney was born at Westborough, Massachusetts, 

 December 6, 1765. As a boy he had shown great 

 mechanical ingenuity, having inherited a taste for 

 machinery from his father, who was quite a skilful 

 mechanic in a small way. Even as a boy of twelve 

 years, young Whitney made many ingenious con- 

 trivances, among others a violin of fairly good shape 

 and tone, and was recognized throughout his neigh- 

 borhood as a boy possessed of unusual mechanical 

 ingenuity. 



The story is told that while still a small boy he be- 

 came possessed with the very common child's desire 

 to take his father's watch to pieces. Feigning illness 

 at church-time one Sunday, therefore, Eli stayed at 

 home, the rest of the family going to their place of 

 worship some little distance from the house. No 

 sooner had the family departed than Eli's illness van- 

 ished, and securing the watch left behind by his father 

 he proceeded to take it to pieces. This part of the task 

 was an easy one for any average boy; but Eli, after 

 removing all the works, performed the more difficult 

 one of putting them together again in proper order, 

 leaving the watch running as before. 



During the Revolutionary War young Whitney was 

 quite successful in manufacturing nails by an ingenious 

 process of his own ; and afterward he engaged in the 

 manufacture of hat-pins and walking-sticks. In 1789 



[9] 



