9 
patience both of the inventors and of those connected with 
them. 
In speaking of Roberts’s invention of 1825, Mr. Dyer 
seems either not to understand of what that invention con- 
sisted, or to greatly undervalue it. Although it is quite true 
that this invention has been greatly improved upon since the 
date of the patent granted for it, those who are practically 
conversant with these matters know well that it contained 
the germs of what was afterwards developed into one of the 
most successful and extensively used machines ever produced. 
In fact it may truly be said that although great improvements 
in the construction of the self-acting mule have been made 
since the date of Roberts’s invention, and especially during 
the last few years, still, in all or nearly all the self-acting 
mules now used there are embodied some of those excellent 
mechanical arrangements of which he was undoubtedly the 
originator, and which must always be looked upon as 
imperishable monuments of that splendid mechanical genius 
with which Roberts was beyond all question endowed. For 
example, the arrangement of the “ cam-shaft” for producing 
the changes of motion of the machine ; the arrangement of 
the double fallers ; the method of causing the faller to be 
depressed by the reverse movement of the apparatus which 
turns the spindles in backing-off; and the system of regu- 
lating the tfc winding-on” by the gradual approximation or 
otherwise of the faller and counter faller, are all contrivances 
displaying the highest mechanical skill and ingenuity, and 
have all been most extensively brought into use, and so con- 
tinue to the present day, while on turning to the patent 
obtained by Roberts in 1830, for the employment of the well 
known radial arm and drum as a means of effecting the 
“ winding-on,” we find that scarcely a self-acting mule is 
now constructed which does not contain in some form or 
other a modification of this famous invention. 
