The Nevada journal., 1857-04-24
The Growth of Machinery.

a striking and curious chapter on the
above subject from which we extract
the following:
"'1'is a curious chapter in modern
history, the growth of the machine-sh
Six hundred years ago, Roger Bacon
explained the procession of the equi-
noxes, the consequent necessity for the
reform in the calendar, measured the
length of the year, invented gunpowder,
announced (as if looking from his lofty
cell over five centuries into ours) that
a machine can be constructed to drive
ships more rapidly than a whole galley
ofrowers could do nor would they need
any thing but pilot to steer them
Carriages might be made to move at an
Incredible speed without the aid of an
animal. Finally it would not be impos-
sible to make machines which by means
of suit of wings, should fly in the air
in the manner of birds But the secret
slept with Bacon. The six hundred
years have not yet fulfilled his words
Two centuries ago the saving of timber
was done by hand, the carriage wheels
ran on wooden axels, the land was titled
by wooden ploughs. And it was to little
purpose that they had pit coal, Or that
looms were improved, unless Watt and
Stevenson had taught them to work
force-pump and power-looms by steam.
The great strides were taken within two
hundred years. The Life of Sir Robert
Peel who died the other day, the model
Englishman, very properly has for a
frontispiece drawing of a spinning
jenny which wove the webb of his for
tunes. Hargreaves invented the spin
ning.jenny, and died in a work house
Arkwright improved the invention, and
the machine dispensed with the work of
ninety-nine men-that is, one spinner
could do as much work as one hundred
had done before.
"The loom was improved further
But the men would sometimes strike for
wages and combine against their mas
tiers, and, about 1S29-30, much fear was
felt lest the trade would be drawn away
by these Interruptions, and the emigra-
ton of the spinners to Belgium and the
United States. Iron and steel are very
obedient. Whether it were not possible
to make a spinner that would not rebel,
nor mutter, nor strike for higher wages,
nor emigrate. At the solicitation of the
masters, after a mob and riot at Staley-
bridge, Mr.. Roberts, of Manchester, un-
dertook to create this peaceable fellow,
instead Of the quarrelsome fellow God
had made. After few trials he sue
ceeded in a creation, the delight of mill
owners and destined, they said, to re-
store order among the industrious class
es'-a machine requiring only child's
hand to piece the broken yarns. AS
Arkwright had destroyed domestic spin
ming, so Roberts destroyed the factory
spinner. The power of machinery in
Great Britain in Mills, has been compu-
ted to be equal to six hundred millions
of men; one man able, by the aid of
steam, to do the work which required
two handred af fifty men to accomplish
fifty years ago. The production has
been commensurate.
England already has this laborious
race, rich soil, water, wood, coal, and
favorable climate. Eight hundred wears
ago, commerce had made it rich, and it
was recorded England is the richest of
all the northern nations The Norman
historians recite, that 'in 1867, William
carried with him into Normandy, from
England, more gold and silver, than ev-
er before had been seen in Gaul. But
when to this, labor, and trade, and the
native resources, was added this goblin
of Steam, with his myriad arms, never
tired, working night and day, eyerlast-
ingly, the amusement of property has
run out of all his fingers. 1t makes the
motor of the last ninety years. The
steam-pipe has added to her population
and wealth the equivalent Of four or
five Englands. Forty thousand ships
are entered on Lloyd's list. The yield
Of wheat has gone on from two million
quarters at the time of the Stuarts, to
thirteen million in 1854. A thousand
million of pounds are said to compose
the floating money of commerce. In
1912 Lord John Russell stated that Ethe
people of this country have laid out
three hundred million pounds sterling of
capital, in railways, in the last four
years