214 Review of the Practical Tourist. 



state in Great Britain and the United States, he estimates the num- 

 ber of power looms for cotton in the former country in 1 832, at 

 about sixty thousand. — He adds concerning steam power that, 



" It requires about a one horse power of the steam engine stand- 

 ard, to work twelve looms, with the machinery for dressing the webs. 

 To keep in motion the above number of sixty thousand power looms, 

 would therefore require a steam power rated equal to that of five 

 thousand horses employed during twelve hours each day ; but, in 

 reality, equal to the actual force of about ten thousand ordinary 

 horses, which animal is found capable of performing effective labor 

 during only about eight hours of each day. Thus is exhibited at 

 a glance the surprising economy of human strength brought about 

 by the single labor saving contrivance of the power loom." 



The amount saved in the expense of weaving in a year, com- 

 paring it with the cost of manual labor as formerly practised, our 

 author estimates at ten million of dollars. 



" It can hardly be believed, indeed, at this late day, how great were 

 the profits which resulted from the employment of Arkwright's ma- 

 chinery, when first invented. * * An English child employed at 

 a machine was able to produce fabrics of greater exchangeable value 

 than one or two score of able bodied men on the adjacent continent, 

 or in the United States. One of the oldest cotton manufacturers in 

 the latter country, who commenced his business at a period when the 

 richest portion of the harvest of wealth had been gathered in Eng- 

 land, has declared, that he would prefer to receive merely the profits 

 of one of his old original cotton mills, after deducting all the cost of 

 stock, labor and other charges, rather than the unconditional gift of 

 the whole product of cloths from a mill of the same number of spin- 

 dles at the present day. Cotton yarn of No. 100, was sold in Eng- 

 land in 1788 at about eight dollars and three quarters per pound, and 

 the same kind of article can now be bought in the same country for 

 about seventy-five to one hundred cents." 



In connexion with cotton manufactures the author gives a cursory 

 view of the equally rapid and wonderful extension of the culture of 

 cotton, which now furnishes nearly half of the clothing to the inhabi- 

 tants of the civilized world. 



" The cotton plant itself is a native of the three continents of 

 Asia, Africa, and America, and flourishes in a broad zone of climates. 

 In Hindoostan and South America, it shoots up into a tree with lofty 

 branches, and annually produces its bursting pods as a spontaneous 



