THE NEW- YORK EXHIBITION ILLUSTRATED.

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ment as, known or latent, exist in science, and hope to retain its manufacturing orcommercial wealth and importance. On these, political influence is based with noremote dependence, and the instances are not unfrequent in which a new industryhas changed, or materially modified, the international balance of power. An in-vention of this order of excellence, is the one with whose early history we com-mence this series of notices.

WHITNEY'S COTTON GIN.

The growth of cotton, its manufacture, and the commerce to which it givesf ise, constitute the most extraordinary industry recorded in the world’s history.In Great Britain, the chief and wealthiest seat of its manufacture, its humble com-m encement dates from the beginning of the eighteenth century; its completedevelopment has been the work of the last fifty years; and in 1851, it employedone-eighth of the population of the United Kingdom; its exports were valued at■£30,000,000, and its taxes contributed one-fourth part of the whole nationalrevenue.

The raw material which supplies this vast industry is obtained chiefly from theUnited States. Of the whole amount consumed in .England, this source furnishes84 per cent.; about 10 per cent, comes from India, 4 per cent, from Brazil, and 2per cent, from the Mediterranean. The cultivation of cotton has followed thecourse of empires. From India, where it has been used from time immemorial, itadvanced through Arabia, and after lingering on the shores of the Levant andNorthern Africa, it crossed the ocean and rested on our Atlantic coast. Here ithas found its permanent and most extensive seat; it has occupied the whole ofthe Southern States, and without deserting the old, still seeks new fields in thevirgin West.

American cotton has twoPrincipal varieties; -the sea-isl-the finest and longest inrile staple, is grown only on thesandy islands of Georgia andCarolina. It is easily cleaned bysimple mechanical means; butrile shorter staple of the uplandVariety is so firmly entangled' w ith the seed, that its separa-tion by hand labor involves anmtpense exceeding the value°f the product. This, however,

Was the only available meansPrevious to 1793. In thatyear the genius of Eli TYTiit-k ey did for the planters ofrile South, what Akkweight,

CiioMriosT, and Watt had al-ready done for the manufac-turers of England. He in-vented a machine by whichrile seeds and impurities wereseparated from the cotton withrile utmost facility, and thusgave to American planters thePractical monopoly of cottongrowing. There is nothing tobe compared with the increasem its cultivation subsequent to^Thitney’s invention, exceptfile corresponding extension of

*ts manufacture in England. The absolute dependence of the cotton trade upon thissingle cause is shown by the fact that the States which, in 1785, exported fivebags, and in 1793 three hundred andseven hags, were able in 1794, the yearwhen the Cotton Gin came into generaluse, to produce a crop of 17,777 bales,of which over 3000 bales were exported.

In 1849, the export rose to 1,500,000bales; which amount must be largelyincreased in 1852 and 1853, the whole’ciop in the United States beii'.g about3,500,000 bales.

that clothes the million, cannot fail to be acceptable to our readers. The Cot-ton Gin received several improvements from the inventor up to 1805. In the twoyears following, Mr. AVhitxey manufactured, at New Haven, seventy or eightyof his improved machines to fulfil a contract -with the State of South Carolina.lie was assisted by Mr. Joseph Smith, who is still living in New Haven, andhas recently testified in a court of law, that the Gin despribed below is one ofthose made at that time, and that it has all of Wpitney’s improvements. This Ginis now in possession of Bates, Hyde & Co., manufacturers of the Eagle Cotton Gin,at Bridgewater, Mass., and from this the following drawings have been made.

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Fig. 1, represents the frame supporting an iron form, upon which the saw-cylinder and brush are hung. Fig. 2, gives an end view of the machine, which

shows the mode of boxing thejournals and retaining themin place. The seed-board ofthe hopper A, is connectedwith the upper part by hinges,and may be placed at airy re-quired distance from the saw-.The back of the hopper B de-scends nearly to the saws justbehind the grating. The rearbranch of the grating makesthe bottom of the moting-trougli C; it also contains a

pan;

Illustrations of the original, as wellas present construction of a machine,which has exercised so striking an in-fluence upon the value of the staple

movable false bottom of tin,which catches the motes. Thecylinder contains 40 saws, Cl-inches in diameter, each hav-ing 100 teeth; they are sepa-rated at distances of f of aninch by block tin, or pewter

_ castings. Tiie 7-inch cylin-

" der brush has 0 -wings, each

extending from one inch belowto two inches above the surface, where they receive oblique tufts of bristles. Infig. 3, a longitudinal section of the brush is shown; its wings are seen to extend

beyond the heads, and form what are calledprojecting lags. The machine has a large open-ing against the ends of the brush to admit theair freely to these lags, and thus prevent thecotton from winding upon the axis of thebrush. The mote-board, made of slats two orthree inches wide, is indicated by the dottedlines in fig. 2. The hopper, moting-trough, &c.,forming one part of the Gin, and the top andceiling hack of the openings, are each hungupon the upper bar of the iron form, and may heturned back at pleasure. In the first Gin rows ofpointed wires were used, from which the transi-tion to circular saws was natural. The cast-

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