We must now rapidly pass over the improvements which were made to the end o€
the century, being more in the finish of the detail than in any new principle, sap-*



19

piEwsibg ttibse'afaeadf sliown. Several improvements were made in the mnle by a
man named Baker, and one Hargreaves, of Toddington; and in 1790, Mr. William
Kelly, of Lanark Mills, applied the agency of water power to the mule. So soon as
this potent agent came to be employed, Mr. Wright, a machine maker of Manchester,
invented the double muk; while Arkwright applied the 'steam engine to his machinery,
as Mr. Drinkwater had done in the year previous* Mr. KeDy also invented in 1702
9l self-acting mule^ which dispensed with a considerable amount of hand labour fai
the process. It was, however, at the time abandoned; but, by these additions, it wu
made capable of working four hundred spindles. In 1793, Mr. Kennedy made some
considerable improvements in the wheel work of the mule, which greatly accelerated
the action of the machine. And we must not omit here to notice the efforts, made
though unsuceessfiilly, to improve the power loom and lessen the expenses of its em*
ployment. In 1790, Messrs. Grimshaw, of Gorton, erected a weaving &etory at
Knott Mill, Manchester, under a license from Dr. Cartwright, and endeavoured te
improve the power loom at great cost to themselves, in which they did not succeed,
and the factory being burned down, they abandoned the undertaking. In 1794^
another power loom was invented by Mr. Bell, of Glasgow, which was, however, like*
wise abandoned; and on the 6th of June, 1796. Mr. Bobert Miller, of Glasgow, teak
out a patent for a machine of the same nature, which was of considerable worth, but
doomed to be early superseded by other improvements.
