MANUFACTURE OF TEXTILE FABRICS.

centuries, of obliterating almost every vestige of the arts whichin the turmoil and tumult of war were either entirely lost orutterly neglected. Thus, for a long succession of years, duringthe middle ages and at the period of the Crusades , the indus-trial arts languished and retrograded, and it was not untilthe time of Michael Angelo and Galileo that mathematics,architecture, engineering and mechanics received the leastencouragement or attention. The mathematician and naturalphilosopher had before then been looked upon with suspicion,and carefully watched as a person dangerous to society. Duringthe rise of painting, sculpture, and architecture, the arts whichrendered the republics of Italy so illustrious, mechanism beganto attract notice, and to that age we may trace the introduc-tion of water mills in many parts of Italy . Little or no pro-gress, however, was made down to the close of the seventeenthcentury.

The Dutch , owing to the natural difficulties of their location,were urged, in their own defence, to take the lead in the fieldof mechanical appliance; and the vast embankments of thatenterprising people, with their canals and docks, fully justifythe remark that they were amongst the first to benefit mankindby the introduction of mills for grinding corn, which was chieflyimported, and of machines for draining the lands which theirpatient industry had reclaimed from the sea. As a prime moverthe Dutch had no water power except what was obtained byimpounding the tidal water and working it off during the refluxof the tide. At best this was an expensive and uncertain powerwhich caused wind to come into more general use ; and duringthe greater part of the seventeenth century we were chieflyindebted to the Dutch and Belgians for our improved knowledgeof manufacture.

Mills for the Manufacture of Textile Fabrics.— Woollen,cotton, and linen cloth was manufactured in this country from anearly period, and the manufacture of silk was practised in Italy in the twelfth century. It was subsequently introduced intoFrance and other parts of Europe , and we learn that James I. encouraged the manufacture, and made an attempt to grow themulberry and jtroduce silk in this country, which, however, asmight have been expected, totally failed. During the reign of