180 COTTON. 
We receive great quantities of cotton from America, 
and the East and West Indies. The whole quantity 
imported into this country, in the year 1802, exceeded 
60,000,000 pounds' weight ; whilst the average annual 
importation, anterior to 1780, did not amount to one- 
tenth part of this ; so rapid has been the increase and 
prosperity of our cotton manufactories. Calicoes and 
muslins of all kinds are made of cotton ; fustians, cor- 
deroys, and innumerable other articles. Nankeens, 
which are manufactured in India, are made of a kind 
of cotton which is naturally of a reddish buff colour. 
After the cotton is imported into England, the first 
process which it goes through is that of carding. Some 
years ago, this was performed by the hand, upon the 
knee, with a single pair of cards ; but it is now per- 
formed with cylindrical cards, worked by machinery. 
The next and most important improvements in the 
manufacture of cotton, were made at Cromford, in the 
county of Derby, by the late Sir Richard Arkwright ; 
who, in 1768, first introduced the method of spinning 
cotton by machinery. By this contrivance cotton was 
carded, roved, and spun, with the utmost expedition, 
correctness, and equality. Other machines have, at 
different subsequent periods, been invented by various 
mechanics and manufacturers, particularly that called 
a jenny r , by which one person is able to spin a hundred 
hanks of cotton yarn a-day, containing, in the whole, 
near a million of yards. The concluding operation is 
that o* weaving, which is performed with a machine 
called a loom, in the same manner as flax (97) and 
hemp (259). 
Cotton is capable of being manufactured into paper, 
which is little inferior to that made from linen rags. 
