or forty centuries ago. A recent writer on the Pallium, an ecclesiastical robe of lamb's wool, says, there stands about a mile outside the Porta Pia, on the road to Tivoli, an old convent of nuns attached to the still more ancient church of St. Agnes. These nuns are poor, and rarely do any of Rome's high-born damsels enter the cloister of this lonely and neglected sisterhood. They have got a small paddock attendant to the monastery, and therein keep a couple of sacred lambs, not necessarily of the Merino breed; but still proud and happy ministrants of their wool for the texture of this noble decoration. The sisters spin it, not by any new fangled jennies, but on the old patriarchal spindle, and weave it in a loom of which the pattern might date from the days of Penelope.

Concluding remarks on Spinning.-To the substitution of circular for straight motions, and of continuous for alternating ones, may be attributed nearly all the conveniences and elegances of civilized life. It is not too much to assert, that the present advanced state of science and the arts, is due to revolving mechanism. We may speak of the wonders that steam and other motive agents have wrought; but what could they have done without this means of employing them? The application of rotary in place of other movements, is conspicuous in modern machinery, from that which propels steam ships through the water, and locomotives over land, to that which is employed in the manufacture of pins and pointing of needles. It is by this, that the irregular motion of the ancient flail and primeval sieve, has become uniform in thrashing, bolting, and winnowing machines-hence, our circular saws, shears and slittting mills-the abolition of the old mode of spreading out metal into sheets with the hammer, by the more expeditious one of passing it through rollers or flatting mills-and hence, revolving oars or paddle wheels for the propulsion of vessels-the process of inking type with rollers in place of hand-rollers-rotary and power printing presses-and revolving machines for planing iron and other metals, instead of the ancient practice of chipping off superfluous portions with chisels, and the tedious operation of smoothing the surfaces with files. But in few things is the effect of this change of motion more conspicuous than in the modern apparatus for preparing, spinning, and weaving vegetable and other fibres into fabrics for clothing. The simple application of rotary motions to these operations has revolutionized the domestic economy of the world, and has increased the general comforts of our race a hundred fold.

The birth of the arts here, and not least among them that of the humble one of spinning, is related to a problem of American ethnology of great and increasing interest-the early occupancy or first peopling of this half of the earth. Were there through countless ages, no eyes and hearts here to respond to the smiling heavens-none to taste the teeming fruits and inhale the aroma of flowers-was the placid atmosphere never rippled by the prattle and laughter of children-nor the song of a bird, nor the movements of a quadruped arrested by the sight of one of the race ordained to rule over them; until a few straggling members of that race arrived (perhaps casually) from abroad, to claim the splendid heritage? If the red man was not indigenous to the soil to the manor born-if the first settlers were aliens, how natural the desire to know who they were? whence they came? and how? and when? and over what spots the first pre-emption rights extended? To ask-have they left no memorials in the languages that have come down; in legends, manners, customs, traditions, religious observances and rites-no sign manual in arts—in utensil, arms, and other relics extant. Have they left not 'their

marks' in earthworks-those most lasting of records-in quarries and entrenchments,-in mines, tumuli and mounds?

It is reasonable to suppose-and difficult to suppose otherwise-that if no human form was ever reflected from the surfaces of the lakes and rivers of this vast expanse, no human voice heard in its glades and forests, the imprint of no human foot left on the sands, until colonized from another continent, the arts of that continent must have been considerably advanced ere the neans of transport or inducements to emigrate were evolved: and under any circumstances a knowledge of the most essential would be brought over. Of these, such as related to the domestic habits and occupations of women would be prominent, and spinning among the foremost. When once introduced, this could not have become lost-indispensable as it is to the savage and semi-savage condition-while the original process or processes, whencesoever derived, unless superseded by better, would be continued in vogue by them and their posterity.

Now, if the first mothers of the American race emigrated from any of the early advanced sections, or outskirts of Eastern civilization, they brought the distaff and spindle whirling free in air, with them: yet nothing of the kind was found at the conquest. It cannot of course be imagined that they, or their descendants, could have been induced to throw the former away, and embarrass the movements of the latter in a calabash or basket. Efficient previous practice, and acquired habits and expertness, could never have been laid aside for such rude and laborious, and unproductive substitutes.

We know that the distaff and spindle have never been lost when once known in the old world: neither civil commotions, political revolutions, nor duration of time affected them-witness Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Italy, Carthage, Persia, Scythia, Asia-Minor, and all the great and small theatres of past history. The laws, learning, science, arts, and even races which once flourished in those countries, have mostly vanished, but women still spin there as they did from thirty to forty centuries ago and so it is here also; the principal mechanical devices of the old Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Peruvians, Chilians, &c., are no longer known; the means by which the stone architecture, the basaltic and porphyritic sculptures of Cusco, Uxmal, Copan, Palenque, and numerous other Aztec remains scattered over the continent, were achieved, are a puzzle, yet the household labors of Indian females in those lands remain unchanged; they spin and weave with the same apparatus and embroider as did their kindred in and before the times of Atabalipa and Mon

tezuma.

Admitting that repeated emigrations hither took place at periods remote as, or even behind that of the Illiad and up to the 12th century of our era-that arrivals, designed or fortuitous, thus occurred, and on both or either of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts-we might still more confidently expect to find the distaff and spindle of the other hemisphere domiciled in this. If they came at all they came in hands practised in their use and tenacious of their worth. But no-from the Cape of storms at the South to the limits of human abodes at the North, instead of them the most awkward contrivances prevailed when the white faces came, and such still are found to prevail. The inference would therefore seem to be that the first colonists and their successors for many ages came before spinning was known in their native homes, or at least before the distaff had been added to the spindle, and that the art as practised by the Aztecs and their successors in Central America at the present day, is purely of aboriginal development—is of remote antiquity, and had not before

the conquest come in contact with the better processes of the other hemisphere.

Of the three epochs of human condition indicated by the materials of which implements and weapons have been made-stone, bronze and iron-it is uncertain whether the distaff was ever developed under the first-the probabilities are that it was not. In the remote periods in which it is mentioned, some of those who possessed it had progressed far into the second, and some had entered on the third. The great mass of the occupants of this continent at the conquest were found toiling in the cycle of stone; while the Mexicans and Peruvians, the most advanced of Red nations, had discovered and applied the properties of copper and some of its alloys: they had entered on the second, but had not progressed far in it. Had they possessed bronze weapons equal to those of the heroic ages, they might yet have preserved, in a measure, their independence and nationalities.

Clothing is second only to food, and clothing is woven thread. The magnitude and all but paramount importance of the manufacture of thread-including that made of flax, silk, cotton, worsted and other fibrous bodies-afford matter for great surprise. Compare the products of the distaff and spindle of old with that of our mills, and how difficult to realize the change which modern mechanism has wrought! The yearly amount-the lineal extent of thread now made, who can measure it? It would reach from our planet to neighboring ones, and in time will suffice for a net-work to include the farthest in the system. Turn from the wood cut illustrations here given of ancient, and not yet obsolete, processes to modern manufactories, and it would seem that while Grecian Helens, Syrian Naahmahs, or Mexican Penelopes were preparing an annual supply of clews for their families, the myriads of spindles now twirling by steam and water, produce enough to use the Asteroids as balls on which to wind it, and as bobbins from which to reel it. Even a century ago, a single mill driven by water, is said to have spun or twisted 73,726 yards of silk-i..e.-between 40 and 50 miles at each revolution of the motive axle.

VI.

EARLY MACHINERY IN AMERICA.

To preserve the original forms and features of machines which have been among the foremost in changing the primitive wild aspect of the continentof opening it to civilization's career, is not simply a matter of passing interest, but one of present duty, and of future recompense; for when an account of the chief agents employed in working out the great things already achieved, and others yet greater in prospect, comes to be written, the principal materials will be looked for, and should be found, in reports of this bureau. As a part of American history, this ought to be done, because the true annals of a people, their most reliable, unmistakeable, unpervertible, durable and natural archives, are THEIR ARTS-their contributions to practical and productive knowledge; ideas they disclose and apply, to extend and refine the realities of life, compelling nature to yield up new treasures, detecting in matter new properties, employing it in new combinations, moulding it in new forms, putting it to new uses, and drawing from it novel and beneficent results;-all other knowledge of them might be lost, yet in these their genius, industry, morals, enterprise, and position in the scale of nations, would be seen and acknowledged.

We are careful, and justly so, to collect reminiscences of patriotic men of the revolution,-why not the venerable machines of that day, also; since the industrial arts themselves, were then on the eve of a change, more radical than at any previous epoch, and as marked, extensive, and fraught with blessings to the world at large, as those relating to the civil and political rights of

man.

By putting on file our early mechanisms, we shall have in them, so many data or starting points, from which to measure subsequent advances to mark off the distances we and our successors may leave them behind.

SAW MILL.

Who ever thinks of what this instrument has done for society-of the value of its services from the times of Colonial struggles to those of independence and of empire! How few call to mind the part it now plays, and the impetus it imparts in every upward movement! An invention almost contemporary with the infancy of civilization, it is among the favored few that in one form or another, are ordained to accompany man throughout his destined

career.

The axe produces the log hut, but not till the saw mill is introduced, do framed dwellings and villages arise; it is civilization's pioneer machine; the precursor of the carpenter, wheelwright and turner, the painter, joiner, and legions of other professions. Progress is unknown where it is not. Its comparative absence in the Southern continent, is not the least cause of the trifling advancement made there during three centuries and a half. Surrounded by forests of the most valuable and variegated timber, with water-power in mountain streams, equally neglected, the masses of the people live in shanties and mud hovels, not more commodious than those of the aborigines, nor more durable than the annual structures of birds. Wherever man has not fixed and comfortable homes, he is, as regards civilization, stationary; improvement under such circumstances, has never taken place, nor can it.

The modern saw mill, driven by steam, differs from those set up by the pilgrims at the East, and by the first planters at the South. An original portrait is given in an old tract, entitled "Virginia's Discovery of silk worms, with their benefit, and the implanting of Mulberry trees. Also the dressing and keeping of vines, for the rich trade of making wines there. Together with the making of the saw mill very useful in Virginia, for cutting of timber and clapboards to build withall, and its conversion to other as profitable uses." By Ed. Williams. London, 1650.