ELI WHITNEY.

WHITNEY furnishes an illustration of the truth, that a man may possess great genius, be an inventor of the highest order, and yet never write a book. Indeed his early occupations were far from favorable to literary pursuits, and even when at a later period he entered Yale College, as a student, we are unable to perceive that he evinced any great anxiety to excel as a literary man. On the contrary, his heart seems to have been centered in his favorite pursuit of mechanics, and his studies were prosecuted with avidity only when they tended to this point. He is said to have been an excellent mathematician, but was not remarkable for his attainments as a classical scholar.

His father, who resided at Westborough, in Massachusetts, at which place Eli Whitney was born on the 8th December, 1765, was a small farmer, and managed by dint of industry to rear an increasing family, frugally yet respectably, for the most part to pursue the same quiet occupation with himself. Whitney's early years were spent in assisting his father and brothers in their agricultural pursuits; but even at this early period he evinced a great fondness for mechanics, and exhibited unmistakeable evidences of a high order of inventive genius. As might naturally be supposed, these first attempts were expended in childish inventions. Some amu

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sing incidents are related of this portion of his life: among others it is said that his father having had occasion to absent himself from home for a few days, enquired on his return, as was his custom, into the occupation of his sons during his absence. He received a good account of all of them, except Eli, who, the housekeeper was reluctantly obliged to confess had been engaged in making a fiddle. "Alas," said the father with a sigh and an ominous shake of the head, "I fear that Eli will have to take out his portion in fiddles." Nor can we marvel much at the parent's forebodings, when we remember how frequent a shift this is with idle and worthless boys.

When but twelve or fourteen years of age, his reputation as a skilful mechanic had become so general, that the surrounding country people were in the habit of bringing to him jobs to execute, which he performed with such skill and neatness as always to satisfy, and not unfrequently to astonish his employers.

The revolutionary war by shutting out imports, raised the price of nails, which were much in demand, and exclusively wrought by hand. Whitney, when but sixteen, persuaded his father to furnish him with the necessary implements to engage in their manufacture. This occupation engaged him for upwards of two years, until the termination of the war, by bringing foreign imports in competition, greatly reduced the profits of his labor, and induced him to relinquish the business.

About this period he determined to acquire a collegiate education. By dint of much perseverance and labor, both as a mechanic and in conducting a small school, he succeeded in procuring the means necessary to defray his expenses, as

well as the education requisite to enable him to enter the Freshmen class at Yale College, in the spring of 1789, when about twenty-four years of age. It is needless to say that young Whitney, who was opposed in his scheme of college education by his family, and was obliged to procure, by his own exertions, the means of sustaining himself while engaged in its prosecution, was a diligent and laborious pupil. Here, as elsewhere, his favorite propensity manifested itself. The classics and polite literature were studied by him from necessity, but mathematics, and especially those branches immediately relating to mechanics, from choice. In the former he was never remarkable, in the latter always a proficient. With the chaste diction, and exquisite poetical imagery of the ancient writers, he had little sympathy. The sweet toned sentences of Theocritus, the pleasing harmony of Virgil, or the graceful measure of Horace, failed to inspire his mind with their lofty and soul-stirring aspirations; the abstruse theories of Euclid, Huygens, Newton and Euler, on the contrary, were to him sources of never ceasing enjoyment.

At college he did not abandon his craft in practical mechanism. One of the teachers mentioning on one occasion, his regret at being unable to exhibit to the class a very interesting experiment, on account of the condition of the philosophical apparatus, which no mechanic in the village was able to rectify, young Whitney volunteered the task, and soon placed the apparatus in complete order, very much to the gratification of his teachers, who warmly commended him for it.

He graduated in 1792, and in the autumn of the same year entered into an engagement with a gentleman who resided in the State of Georgia, to become a private tutor to his children.

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He shortly after set out for that State, in order to comply with his engagement. Unfortunately he found the position he had left his home to fill, occupied by another, and was thus left without occupation or means, and almost friendless. It had been his good fortune, however to accompany a southern lady who, with her family, was returning from a northern tour, from New York to Savannah. This lady, who was the widow of General Greene, a distinguished officer of the Revolution, took a deep interest in the welfare of Whitney, and no sooner heard of his disappointment, than she kindly proposed to him to make her house his home, and immediately to commence the study of the law, according to his original intention. Whitney accepted this offer, and took up his residence with her accordingly.

An incident occurred here which completely changed all his views in relation to himself, for life, and called out that invention which will in all time rank his name among the greatest benefactors of his kind, and place him in the foremost rank of inventive geniuses. It was this: a party of gentlemen from the northern part of the State, who were on a visit to Mrs. Greene, were deprecating the almost perfect impracticability of so separating the seed from the upland cotton as to make its cultivation an object of importance. Mrs. Greene, who had on more occasions than one, witnessed Whitney's wonderful mechanical genius, advised her guests to appeal to him, assuring them at the same time, that he was able to accomplish whatever mechanical task he set himself about. The guests and the future inventor of the cotton-gin, were accordingly made acquainted with each other, and he was urged by them as well as by his kind friend and patroness,

to undertake the task. He modestly disclaimed any great knowledge of mechanics, but nevertheless agreed to make the attempt.

His first object was to procure a sample of the upland cotton, containing the seed, which as yet he had never seen. For this purpose he made a visit to Savannah, and having succeeded in procuring the cotton in this condition, returned to commence his experiments upon it. His intentions were confined to his patroness, Mrs. Greene, and Mr. Miller, a New England gentleman, who was then a tutor in Mrs. Greene's family, and afterwards became her husband. This gentleman not only warmly entered into his views, but on the completion of his model, became his partner in business, and furnished him with the capital necessary to carry on his operations. A separate room was assigned to him as his workshop, into which no persons were admitted except his two confidants, Mrs. Greene, (who appears to have kept his secret,) and Mr. Miller.

He thus speaks of his operations at this time, in a letter addressed to Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State, dated the 21st of November, 1793: "Within about ten days after my first conception of the plan, I made a small, though imperfect, model. Experiments with this encouraged me to make one on a larger scale; but the extreme difficulty of procuring workmen and proper materials in Georgia, prevented my completing the large one until some time in April last." The model machine, on a scale sufficiently large to test its practicability, was made entirely with his own hands, and with the rudest instruments. He was even obliged to draw out the