ELI WHITNEY.

ONE day, in the fall of 1792, when General Washington was President of the United States, a company of Georgia planters happened to be assembled at the house, near Savannah, of Mrs. Nathaniel Greene, widow of the famous General Greene, of the Revolution. Several of these planters had been officers under the command of the general, and they had called, naturally enough, to pay their respects to his widow.

The conversation turned upon the depressed condition of the Southern States since the close of the war. The planters were generally in debt, their lands were mortgaged, their products afforded little profit, and many of the younger and more enterprising people were moving away. The cause of this state of things, these planters agreed, was the difficulty of raising cotton with profit, owing to the great labor required in separating the fibres of the cotton from the seeds.

Many of our readers, we presume, have never seen cotton growing, nor even a boll, or pod, of cotton. This pod, which is about as large as a hen's egg, bursts when it is ripe, and the cotton gushes out at the top in a beautiful white flock. If you examine this flock closely, you discover that it contains eight or ten large seeds, much resembling, in size and shape, the seeds of a lemon. The fibres of the cotton adhere so tightly to the seeds, that to get one pound of clean cotton, without wasting any, used to require a whole day's labor. It was this fact that rendered the raising of cotton so little profitable, and kept the Southern States from sharing in the prosperity enjoyed by the States of the North, after the close of the Revolutionary war.

When the gentlemen had been conversing for some time, the

idea was started that perhaps this work could be done by a machine. Mrs. Greene then remarked:

"Gentlemen, apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make anything."

Few words have ever been spoken on this globe, that have had such important and memorable consequences as this simple observation of Mrs. Nathaniel Greene.

Eli Whitney, of whom she spoke, was a young Massachusetts Yankee, who had come to Georgia to teach, and, having been taken sick, had been invited by this hospitable lady to reside in her house till he should recover. He was the son of a poor farmer, and had worked his way through college without assistance-as Yankee boys often do. From early boyhood he had exhibited wonderful skill in mechanics, and in college he used to repair the philosophical apparatus with remarkable nicety,to the great admiration of professors and students. During his residence with Mrs. Greene he had made for her an ingenious tambour-frame, on a new principle, as well as many curious toys for her children. Hence her advice: "Apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make anything.'

She now introduced Mr. Whitney to her friends, who described to him the difficulties under which they labored. He told them he had never seen a pod of cotton in his life. Without giving them any promises, he resolved to procure some raw cotton forthwith, and see what he could do with it. Searching about the wharves of Savannah, he found, at length, some uncleaned cotton, and taking home a bundle of it in his hands, he shut himself up in a room in the basement, and set to work to invent the machine required.

All the winter he labored in his solitary cell. There were no proper tools to be had in Savannah. He made his own tools. There was no wire. He made his own wire. The children, the servants, the visitors at the house, wondered what he could be doing in the basement all alone. But he said nothing, and kept on thinking, hammering, and tinkering, till, early in the spring of 1793, he had completed his work. Having set up the mysterious machine in a shed, he invited a number of planters to come and witness its operation. Its success was complete.

The gentlemen saw, with unbounded wonder and delight, that one man, with this young Yankee's engine, could clean as much cotton in one day as a man could clean by hand in a whole winter. The cotton grown on a large plantation could be separated from the seed in a few days, which before required the constant labor of a hundred hands for several months.

Thus was the cotton-gin invented. The principle was so simple that the wonder was that no one had thought of it before. The cotton was put into a large trough, the bottom of which was formed of wires placed in parallel rows, so close together that the seed could not pass through. Under this trough saws revolved, the teeth of which thrust themselves between the wires and snatched the cotton through, leaving the seed behind, which ran out in a stream at one end of the trough.

The simplicity of the cotton-gin had two effects, one good, the other bad. The good effect was, that in the course of a very few years it was introduced all over the cotton States, increased the value of all the cotton lands, doubled and trebled the production of cotton, and raised the Southern States from hopeless depression to the greatest prosperity. The effect was as lasting as it was sudden. In 1793 the whole export of cotton from the United States was ten thousand bales. In 1859 the export was four millions of bales. Men acquainted with the subject are of opinion that that single invention has been worth to the South one thousand millions of dollars.

How much did the inventor gain by it? Not one dollar! Associating himself with a man of capital, he went to Connecticut to set up a manufactory of cotton-gins. But the simplicity of the machine was such, that any good mechanic who saw it could make one; and long before Whitney was ready to supply machines of his own making there were great numbers in operation all over the cotton States. His patent proved to be no protection to him. If he brought a suit for its infringement, no Southern jury would give him a verdict. He struggled on against adverse influences for fifteen years. In 1808, when his patent expired, he gave up the contest and withdrew from the business, a poorer man than he was on the day when he went, with his handful of cotton-pods, into Mrs. Greene's basement.

Thousands of men were rich, who, but for his ingenuity and labor, would have remained poor to the end of their days. The levees of the Southern seaports were heaped high with cotton, which, but for him, would never have been grown. Fleets of cotton ships sailed the seas, which, but for him, would never have been built. He, the creator of so much wealth, returned to his native State, at the age of forty-two, to begin the world

anew.

But Eli Whitney was a thoroughbred Yankee,—one of those unconquerable men, who, balked in one direction, try another, and keep on trying till they succeed. He turned his attention to the improvement of fire-arms, particularly the old-fashioned musket. Having established a manufactory of fire-arms at New Haven, he prospered in business, and was enabled, at length, to gratify his domestic tastes by marrying the daughter of Judge Pierpont Edwards, with whom he lived in happiness the rest of his life. Some of the improvements which he invented are preserved in the celebrated Springfield musket, with which our soldiers are now chiefly armed. It was he who began the improvements in fire-arms which Colt and many others have continued, and which have given the United States the best muskets, the best pistols, and the best cannon in the world. Eli Whitney died in January, 1826, in his sixtieth year.

It is a curious fact that the same man should have supplied the South with the wealth that tempted it to rebel, and the United States with the weapons with which it enforced its just authority.

The time is at hand when Yankee ingenuity will again be employed in developing the vast resources of the Southern States. There are Whitneys still among us. When, at length, the opportunity shall be afforded them, they will set to work, tinkering and cogitating, inventing new machines and new methods, causing the worn fields to smile again with abundant harvests, and the dilapidated old towns to renew their youth.

AUDUBON.

ONE of the happiest men, and one of the most interesting characters we have had in America, was John James Audubon, the celebrated painter and biographer of American birds. He was one of the few men whose pursuits were in perfect accordance with his tastes and his talents; and, besides this, he enjoyed almost every other felicity which falls to the lot of a mortal.

His father was a French admiral who, about the middle of the last century, emigrated to Louisiana, where he prospered, and reared a family. His distinguished son was born in 1780. While he was still a little boy, he showed a remarkable interest in the beautiful birds that flew about his father's sugar-plantation, particularly the mocking-bird, which attains its greatest perfection in that part of Louisiana. He soon had a considerable collection of living birds; and he tells us that his first attempts to draw and paint were inspired by his desire to preserve a memento of the beautiful plumage of some of his birds that died. In delineating his feathered friends he displayed so much talent that, at the age of fourteen, his father took him to Paris, and placed him in the studio of the famous painter, David, where he neglected every other branch of art except the one in which he was destined to excel. David's forte was in painting battle-pieces; but his pupil was never attracted to pictures of that kind, and he occupied himself almost exclusively in painting birds. At seventeen, he returned to Louisiana and resumed, with all his former ardor, his favorite study.

"My father," he says, in one of his prefaces, "then made me a present of a magnificent farm in Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Schuylkill, where I married. The cares of a household,