APPENDIX. 



MANUFACTURE OF PINS. 



We have seen with great satisfaction the beautiful machine for 

 the manufacture of pins invented by Dr. Howe. 



Its operation is so like that produced by intelligence directed in 

 the immediate movements by a specific purpose, and furnished with 

 the organs (so to speak) adapted to fulfil its designs, that it per- 

 fectly imitates the human fingers, obeying the impulse of the mind. 



The production of a perfect pin headed and pointed by one sys- 

 tem of movements, is equally surprising and gratifying. The man- 

 ufacture although of a small article, is also of national importance, 

 and we therefore admit the reasonable statements of Dr. Howe, as 

 an Appendix to this Number, — trusting that the publication may 

 not be without effect upon the minds of those who form our com- 

 mercial regulations, and determine the success or failure of our do- 

 mestic manufactures. — Editors. 



To THE Editors of the American Journal of Science, &c. 



Gentlemen — Agreeably to your suggestion, I take leave to com- 

 municate to you a few of the facts and circumstances connected with 

 the attempt, in which I am engaged, to introduce the manufacture of 

 pins, in our country, by the use of labor-saving machinery. 



You are aware that in the manufacture of pins, in Europe, man- 

 ual labor, for the most part, of the cheapest kind is employed ; and, 

 consequently, that any attempt to manufacture them, in this country, 

 by a similar method, must inevitably fail, on account of the compar- 

 atively high price of labor here, — unless protected by a high import 

 duty, or a prohibition of the importation of the article. During the 

 war of 1812, when the supply from abroad was in a great measure 

 cut off, pins were sold in this country at greatly enhanced prices. 



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