with Mr. Lillie
Employed by Messrs. Adam Murray and Co.
Employed by Messrs. MacConnel and Kennedy
Progress of the Cotton Trade
Memoir of John Kennedy
Mr. Fairbairn introduces great improvements in the gearing, &c.
of mill machinery
Increasing business Improvements in water-wheels
Experiments as to the law of traction of boats
Begins building iron ships
Experiments on the strength of wrought iron
Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges
Reports on iron
On boiler explosions
Iron construction
Extended use of iron
Its importance in civilization
Opinion of Mr. Cobden
Importance of modern machine-tools
Conclusion

INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER I.

IRON AND CIVILIZATION.

"Iron is not only the soul of every other manufacture, but the main
spring perhaps of civilized society."--FRANCIS HORNER.

"Were the use of iron lost among us, we should in a few ages be
unavoidably reduced to the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage
Americans; so that he who first made known the use of that contemptible
mineral may be truly styled the father of Arts and the author of
Plenty."--JOHN LOCKE.

When Captain Cook and the early navigators first sailed into the South
Seas on their voyages of discovery, one of the things that struck them
with most surprise was the avidity which the natives displayed for
iron. "Nothing would go down with our visitors," says Cook, "but
metal; and iron was their beloved article." A nail would buy a
good-sized pig; and on one occasion the navigator bought some four
hundred pounds weight of fish for a few wretched knives improvised out
of an old hoop.

"For iron tools," says Captain Carteret, "we might have purchased
everything upon the Freewill Islands that we could have brought away.
A few pieces of old iron hoop presented to one of the natives threw him
into an ecstasy little short of distraction." At Otaheite the people
were found generally well-behaved and honest; but they were not proof
against the fascinations of iron. Captain Cook says that one of them,
after resisting all other temptations, "was at length ensnared by the
charms of basket of nails." Another lurked about for several days,
watching the opportunity to steal a coal-rake.

The navigators found they could pay their way from island to island
merely with scraps of iron, which were as useful for the purpose as
gold coins would have been in Europe. The drain, however, being
con