ning. He approached his subject, therefore, with the 

 ignorance, but also the enthusiasm, of the novice. 

 As an initial step he made a trip to the wharves at 

 Savannah, and there succeeded in securing enough 

 raw cotton for experimental purposes. A room in 

 the Greene mansion was turned over to him for a work- 

 shop, and he set about his task. A few months later 

 the doors of his den were thrown open, disclosing his 

 wonderful creation, the "saw gin." 



This remarkable machine consisted of a series of 

 circular saws set close together on an axle, arranged 

 so that they played between narrow slots in a comb- 

 like piece of metal. As the cotton was fed to these 

 saws, the fibers were seized and drawn down through 

 the slots, which were too small to allow the passage 

 of the clinging seeds. A series of revolving brushes 

 on the opposite side removed the cotton fibers, deliv- 

 ering them as fleecy cotton-down free from seeds, 

 while the seeds rolled away into a receptacle made to 

 receive them. By this machine, the work of a single 

 man was increased at least a hundredfold, a day's 

 work being no longer represented by the pound, but 

 by the hundredweight. 



As the news of this successful invention spread 

 among the planters, Whitney soon experienced the 

 treatment that seems to have been peculiarly the fate 

 of almost every early inventor connected with the 

 spinning- and weaving-industries. The inventors of 

 the spinning-jenny, flying-shuttle loom, and mule, had 

 their machines broken or destroyed; Whitney's gin 

 was stolen. The differences in the motives of these 



