An English clergyman by the name of Edmund Cartwright has the credit of inventing the power loom. His description of his labors is interesting. We copy from one of his letters: "Happening to be in Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with two gentlemen of Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright's spinning machinery. One of the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright's patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, that hands never could be found to weave it. To this observation I replied, that Arkwright must then set his wits to work and invent a weaving mill. This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable; and, in defense of their opinion, they adduced arguments which I certainly was incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject, having never at that time seen a person weave. I controverted, however, the impracticability of the thing, by remarking that there had lately been exhibited an automaton figure which played at chess." "Some little time afterward, a particular circumstance recalling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that, as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had of the business, there could only be three movements, which were to follow each other in succession, there would be very little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of these ideas, I immediately got a carpenter and smith to carry them into effect. As soon as the machine was finished I got a weaver to put in the warp, which was of such material as sail-cloth is usually made of. To my delight a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the product. As I had never before turned my thoughts to anything mechanical, either in theory or practice, nor had ever seen a loom at work or knew anything of its construction, you will readily suppose that my first loom must have been a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed perpendicularly, the reed fell with a force of at least half a hundred weight and the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. "In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate and only for a short time. Conceiving in my great simplicity that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most valuable property by a patent, 4th of April, 1785. This being done, I then condescended to see how other people wove. And you will guess my astonishment when I compared their easy mode of operation and mine. Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its general principles nearly as they are now made; but it was not until the year 1787 that I completed my invention, when I took out my first weaving patent Aug. 1 of that year."