Upon this idea he proceeded, introduced the apparently simple but really most intricate process of machine-combing, and after great labour he succeeded in perfecting the invention. The singular beauty of the process can only be appreciated by those who have witnessed the machine at work, when the similarity of its movements to that of combing the hair, which suggested the invention, is at once apparent. The machine has been described as “acting with almost the delicacy of touch of the human fingers.” It combs the lock of cotton _at both ends_, places the fibres exactly parallel with each other, separates the long from the short, and unites the long fibres in one sliver and the short ones in another. In fine, the machine not only acts with the delicate accuracy of the human fingers, but apparently with the delicate intelligence of the human mind. The chief commercial value of the invention consisted in its rendering the commoner sorts of cotton available for fine spinning. The manufacturers were thereby enabled to select the most suitable fibres for high-priced fabrics, and to produce the finer sorts of yarn in much larger quantities. It became possible by its means to make thread so fine that a length of 334 miles might be spun from a single pound weight of the prepared cotton, and, worked up into the finer sorts of lace, the original shilling’s worth of cotton-wool, before it passed into the hands of the consumer, might thus be increased to the value of between 300_l._ and 400_l._ sterling. The beauty and utility of Heilmann’s invention were at once appreciated by the English cotton-spinners. Six Lancashire firms united and purchased the patent for cotton-spinning for England for the sum of 30,000_l._; the wool-spinners paid the same sum for the privilege of applying the process to wool; and the Messrs. Marshall, of Leeds, 20,000_l._ for the privilege of applying it to flax. Thus wealth suddenly flowed in upon poor Heilmann at last. But he did not live to enjoy it. Scarcely had his long labours been crowned by success than he died, and his son, who had shared in his privations, shortly followed him. It is at the price of lives such as these that the wonders of civilisation are achieved. CHAPTER III. HE GREAT POTTERS—PALISSY, BÖTTGHER, WEDGWOOD. “Patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, and the rarest too . . . Patience lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope herself ceases to be happiness when Impatience companions her.”—_John Ruskin_. “Il y a vingt et cinq ans passez qu’il ne me fut monstré une coupe de terre, tournée et esmaillée d’une telle beauté que . . . dèslors, sans avoir esgard que je n’avois nulle connoissance des terres argileuses, je me mis a chercher les émaux, comme un homme qui taste en ténèbres.”—_Bernard Palissy_.