SEVERAL MECHANICAL INVENTIONS. 143 



Without casting any slight upon the application of Mr. 

 Whittemore's cam motions by subsequent inventors, or 

 /jailing in question the merits of the machines in which 

 they are used exactly in the same way as in the wire-card 

 making, it is but fair to say that, besides inventing his own 

 machine, he thereby became the pioneer and guide to the 

 pursuits of other able mechanicians in their labours for 

 the advance of mechanical science. 



Mr. Whittemore, like most other inventors, met with 

 many obstacles to bringing his machine into a "good 

 working state " after it was invented, so far as regards the 

 mechanical principles on which it was founded ; and many 

 years elapsed thereafter before any profit could be realized 

 from his patent card-making works. 



His path had been beset with both mechanical and 

 pecuniary difficulties, many of the former not having been 

 anticipated to the extent that arose in practice. Mr. 

 Whittemore had adapted his machine for setting in plain 

 rows the kind of cards before nailed on boards for hand- 

 carding, whilst those required for the new carding engines 

 were of various kinds, widely differing from the former 

 sorts, such as plain, ribbed, and twilled in the setting, 

 and in sheets, tops, and fillet cards of various lengths and 

 breadths to suit the different sized engines. To meet the 

 calls for these (already supplied by the hand makers in 

 England) Mr. Whittemore had to devise many changes in 

 the construction of the machine, to adapt it for making 

 the several kinds of cards suited for the new cylinder card- 

 ing, such changes taxing his inventive powers to meet the 

 unlooked-for demands. 



In this incomplete state of the patent machine his bro- 

 ther, Mr. William Whittemore, joined him to form a Com- 

 pany in Boston for patent card-making, and for bringing 

 the patent machines into more extensive use in America, 

 and also for introducing it into England. 



