pushed to their full extent; and the result was the attainment of perfection and economy such as I had never met with before."

All tests and examinations to which the repeating arms were subjected in England were highly in their favor. Emphatically they spoke for themselves. The enormous power, nay, the invincibility of British troops armed with them, was demonstrated. "The revolver manufactured by Colonel Colt," said the Dover Telegraph, a public journal, expressing the best and almost universal opinion of England upon the arm, "is a weapon that cannot be improved upon. It will, we unhesitatingly predict, prove a panacea for the ills we have so unhappily encountered in the Southern hemisphere. The Caffre hordes will bitterly 'rue the day on which the first terrific discharge is poured upon their sable masses."" And so a panacea—the revolver did prove, both with the Caffre hordes, and with the Scandinavian upon the bloody plains of the Crimea. The marvelous extension of its use within a few years, in Europe, and over parts of Asia-the establishment by the British Government of an armory of its own, at Enfield, for its manuture-the establishment of another by the Russian Government at Tula for the same manufacture-the call upon Colonel Colt, aided in part by some other American establishments, to provide all the important machinery for these new armories-these facts, and hosts of testimonials from all parts of the world, and from the highest sources, attest the unrivaled excellence of the repeating arms of Colonel Colt, and rank him among the most remarkable inventors of the world.

But it is not only in the department of arms that Colonel Colt's mechanical genius has displayed itself. He also invented an apparatus for blowing up vessels, and for coast and harbor defense, which, in his own hands signally successful, and for a time experimented upon under the patronage and at the expense of the American General Government, will yet, we cannot but believe, be adopted as a system, and, to a great extent, take the place of forts and bastions, and Paixhan guns, for maritime defense.' Aside from this, to him, belongs the rare honor, of first succeeding in transmitting telegraphic communications under water, by an insulated wire, as spoken of more fully in the preceding sketch of Professor Morse.

CYRUS H. M'CORMICK, THE INVENTOR OF THE REAPING MACHINE.

Inventive talent, as applied to the first great want of man, the production of food, is as yet in its early infancy. In no department of human industry are the triumphs of inventors to be more signally displayed than in this; and although the decree that man by the sweat of his brow shall earn his bread, will never be removed; yet the benefits which he is to derive through the aid of machinery, in the planting, tilling, and gathering of his crops, and in the application of science to the processes of agriculture, are to effect a revolution of the magnitude of which we can now have no concep tion. The day is fast waning in which the success of the farmer is considered as guaranteed simply by the exercise of plodding industry. Agri. culture is rapidly taking its true position as the noblest of all vocations, requiring for its successful prosecution the highest faculties of the intellect, and yielding, too, the best of all rewards, vigorous health, independence, and the absence of those temptations which are the curse of the competi

tive avocations of a city life. All honor, then, to those laborers in science and invention, who are doing so much to elevate the condition of the agriculturist, and to cause the earth to yield more abundantly the riches of nature, for the sustenance and comfort of man.

Among the inventions of our countrymen, in aid of agriculture, the reaper of Cyrus H. M'Cormick stands at the head of the list, as a labor-saving machine, and as having brought honor to the American name, by the ingenuity displayed in its construction. The inventor is a Virginian by birtha native of the county of Rockbridge, which is in the heart of the State, and in that part known as the Valley of Virginia, long famous for the generous crops which bless the labors of the husbandman. He commenced his career as an inventor about the year 1830, his mind having been given that bent at an early age by his father, Robert M'Cormick, a highly respectable farmer, of excellent mechanical genius, who had himself patented several machines, and experimented upon a reaping machine as early as 1816, and again in 1831. The trial of this machine of the elder M'Cormick in 1831, which was measurably successful in strait, untangled grain, satisfied him that it would not answer any valuable purpose for ordinary harvest operations, and he accordingly abandoned it.

His son Cyrus, however, had even then been employing his mind upon the subject; for during this same harvest, he had actually succeeded in inventing and putting in operation a machine containing most of the lead.ng features in his present reaper, but wholly different from the plan of that invented by the elder M'Cormick. It operated quite well in cutting a portion of a late crop of oats on the farm of Mr. John Steele, which adjoined that of his father. The circumstances of this trial, and a description of the machine, were published in the spring of 1834, in the Mechanic's Magazine, of E. K. Minor, of New York.

Aside from this, Mr. M'Cormick was at that period occupied with the invention of two plows, one of which, called a "hill-side plow," was patented in June, 1831, and the other, designated as a "self-sharpening, horizontal plow," was patented in November, 1833. These were both designed for horizontal plowing, and were ingeniously arranged; and the last named, is said to be the most simple and effective of its kind. It has not been extensively introduced, for the reason that the reaper became of so much greater importance, as to consume the time and attention of the inventor, to the neglect of the other; and on the expiration of the patent, he failed in obtaining a renewal by congress. Mr. M'Cormick's first patent for his reaper, was obtained in June, 1834. Several years elapsed before he had it sufficiently perfected to be fully satisfied to offer it to the public extensively upon his own responsibility, which he deemed the proper way to introduce it. This lapse of time was owing to the very limited period given in each year-the harvest season-for experimenting upon it, and making the improvements which experience suggested.

In the year 1841, he first advertised his reaper in the public prints of Virginia, on a full guarantee of its performance. In this original advertisement, he says that, "Having satisfied himself that, after several years of labor and attention in improving and completing his invention, he had triumphantly succeeded in effecting his object with as much perfection as

the principle admits of, or is now desirable; performing all that would be expected, viz: the cutting of all kinds of small grain, in almost all the various situations in which it may be found, whether on level or moderately-hilly lands, whether long or short, heavy or light, straight, tangled, or leaning, in the best possible manner, by a machine operated by horsepower, with little friction or strain upon any of its parts, and without complication, and, therefore not subject to get out of order, but strong and durable-that operates with great saving of labor and grain.”

Soon after the advertisement of Mr. M'Cormick, and subsequent to the harvest of 1842, numerous testimonials, to the great value of the invention, were published in the papers of the State. One of these, from Mr. W. M. Peyton, an eminent agriculturist, we insert for its full description of its advantages as a labor-saving machine.

"I have tested it satisfactorily in every grade and condition of wheat: in that which was very light, as well as that which would have yielded, but for the rust, from thirty to forty bushels per acre; in that which was erect, and in that which was tangled and fallen, and found it to operate in every instance with surprising neatness and efficiency-scarcely leaving a head, and but slightly influenced in the number of acres cut in a given time, by the condition of the grain. It was found to cut tangled and fallen grain, wherever it was not too flat to be reached by the sickle, as well as that which was standing. The neatness and completeness with which the crop is saved, is scarcely conceivable to one who has not witnessed its work. Those most wedded to the cradle, admit that the reaper will save, on an average, at least one more bushel to the acre in standing wheat than the best cradling, while in tangled grain the saving would be augmented double, treble, or even quadruple that amount. So that the machine, which costs only a hundred dollars, will pay for itself in cutting an ordinary crop.

"The machine, too, is simple and substantial; of course, not liable to get out of order; and when, from casualty, deranged or broken, easily rectified or repaired by an ordinary mechanic. It will cut with facility fifteen acres per day; and when pushed, at least twenty. Two hands attend it with ease, as rider and raker, relieving each other regularly, and five or six will bind the grain with more ease, than they would bind the same quantity of grain after cradlers and rakers, as the machine leaves it strait, and in piles large enough for several sheaves. It is fully equal to five choice cradlers, who would require five rakers and five binders to follow them, making fifteen in all. Thus you see there is a saving of the labor of eight hands in every day's cutting of the reaper. It performs equally well on rolling and undulating as on level land, and by taking steep hills obliquely, so as to graduate the ascent, the difficulty with them will in a great degree be obviated."

Another prominent Virginia farmer, General Corbin Braxton, also testified: "It has been worked this harvest under almost every disadvantage which it was possible to bring to bear against it, in consequence of the unprecedented weather we have had. It will cut any wheat that is not too low for the reel and teeth to reach it. It does not appear to me to be as liable to get out of order as a common cradle, and I should think it would be very durable. The reaper has cut all descriptions of wheat: green, ripe, rusted as badly as

wheat could have it, lying and standing; and I think that every farmer cutting fifty acres of wheat would find it to his advantage to have one. No weather has prevented the reaper from working, except when the ground was so soft as to mire the wheels."

From this time the reaper went into public use, gaining favor regularly as it became more widely known, until the year 1845, when a second patent was granted for improvements in the cutting apparatus, and in the method of dividing and separating the grain to be cut, from that to be left on the field for the next swath. In 1847, Mr. M'Cormick obtained a third patent, for the improvement of so arranging his machine as to be able to carry the man upon it, whose duty it was to discharge the cut grain from the platform of the machine on the ground, out of the track of the horses, in passing the next time.

With these patented improvements, together with such others as suggested themselves from year to year in perfecting the details, "M'Cormick's Reaper" has been steadily winning its way into favor, and tolding its position of superiority over all others. Its first trial with a competitor, was with Hussey's Reaper, at Richmond, Virginia, in the harvest of 1843, when there was no other machine of the kind known in the world. It was a signal triumph for M'Cormick's Reaper. But the event which more than anything else served to give it a wide reputation, was the honor it won at the "World's Fair," in London, in 1851. When first seen at the exhibition of the Crystal Palace, it was the great butt of ridicule of the English press. The London Times sneered at it as a curious affair, resembling "a cross between an Astley chariot, a tread-mill, and a flying-machine." When the English people had an opportunity of witnessing its working powers in a field of grain, their sneers were changed to cheers, and there appeared almost no bounds to the enthusiasm with which they alluded to it. The London Times said it was the most valuable article on exhibition from any country, and was of sufficient value to compensate for the whole expense of the World's Fair. In fact its triumph was the first and most important event of the exhibition in retrieving the reputation of our country, from the ridicule which the meagerness of our contributions had called forth, compared with the rich, elegant, and large display of fine goods and gew-gaws of other countries. Its success on this occasion resulted in the award to Mr. M'Cormick of "The Great Council Medal," which was the highest class premium granted, and which was given to no other single agricultural implement at the exhibition.

No less signal was the triumph of M'Cormick's Reaper at the Great Industrial Exhibition of all Nations, at Paris, in 1855. It was there brought in competition with the American machines of Hussey and Manny-that of Bell's, of Scotland, with one or two others of French production. To it, then, as a combined reaper and mower, upon the most thorough test of its powers made in the field, in cutting wheat, oats, and grass, was awarded the only "Grand Medal of Honor" given to any single agricultural implement on exhibition. The Hon. Wm. Elliott, Commissioner of the State of South Carolina, who was present, in his report to the governor of that State, says: “I had the pleasure of witnessing the trial of M'Cormick's machine, and second triumph in the field of Trappes, where model implements, selected

from France and England, were brought in competition with it only to test its superiority. Its success was so distinguished as to disarm envy, and bring down generous cheers from the vanquished parties." The La Presse," the most extensively circulated newspaper in France, on this occasion devoted no less than four columns to a minute historical sketch and description of the machine, in connection with an account of the extraordinary results of these trials.

At the Paris exhibitions of 1856-7, the first premiums were awarded to M'Cormick's Reaper; and to the same was awarded the first premium of the United States Agricultural Society, in July, 1857, at a trial at Syracuse of about twenty of the most prominent reapers of the United States.

The rapidity with which the farmer can, by this machine, cut his grain, when in the proper state, has greatly stimulated production in our country. For grass-cutting it operates with equal advantage, proportional to the amount of that crop. M'Cormick's Reaper may be said to be to the great West, what Whitney's cotton gin is to the South-a machine of incalculable advantages in developing the resources of the country. In the broad prairies of the West it has full scope for its triumphs; some four thousand of them being annually manufactured at Chicago, mainly for the use of the Western farmers.

ISAAC M. SINGER, AND THE SEWING MACHINE.

The SEWING MACHINE does great honor to the inventive genius of our countrymen. This machine is not, however, the result of the ingenuity of one mind, but appears to have been brought to its present state of usefulness by the successive inventions of many individuals, which, when properly combined has resulted in an invention, whose pecuniary benefits cannot be measured by millions, and which in the emancipation of the wives, mothers, and daughters of the land from a most unhealthy kind of labor, is destined to prove one of the greatest of human blessings.

The magnitude of this invention, can hardly be appreciated. It is estimated that in civilized countries more than one half of the adult portion of the human race are almost wholly employed in the use of the needle, and much of this sewing is of a kind which rapidly wears upon the system, producing premature disease and death. The sewing machine was precisely the invention most needed by the world.

The first sewing machine of which there is any account was of French invention, and was a tambour machine of simple contrivance, which was used for the purpose of ornamenting the backs of gloves, and marking cloths. It operated with one needle and a single thread, making what is commonly called the single chain stitch. This machine was not adapted to general purposes, the seam sewed by it could readily be raveled out, and therefore it never was much used.

The next machine or machines for sewing, for there were two or more of them, differing in form and arrangement, but alike in their essential principles of operation, were invented, constructed, exhibited, and sold by WALTER HUNT, of the City of New-York, in the years 1834 and 1835.

The next sewing machine in order, and the first upon which a patent was