In the course of his travels in 1767, he fell in with a clockmaker, named Kay, at Warrington, whom he employed as a workman in prosecuting some of his mechanical experiments. Kay, according to his own account, gave Arkwright some description of a machine contrived by one Highs, for spinning by rollers. It is certain that from thenceforward Arkwright abandoned his former pursuits, and applied himself, in conjunction with Kay, to the construction of a spinning machine. One Smalley, a liquor-merchant of Preston, assisted him with money; and the two, fearing lest they might be endangered by a riotous spirit which had been directed against machinery in Lancashire, went to settle at Nottingham. There Arkwright obtained an introduction to Messrs. Need and Strutt, two gentlemen largely engaged in the stocking manufactory, who appreciated his talents, and entered into partnership with him. What became of Mr. Smalley we do not hear. Arkwright took out a patent for his invention, which was enrolled, July 15, 1769. The partners erected a mill near Nottingham, which was turned by horse-power: but this was soon superseded by a much larger establishment at Cromford in Derbyshire, on the river Derwent, in which water-power was applied for the first time to the purpose of spinning; and from that circumstance Arkwright’s machine was called the _water-frame_. As the difficulty of meeting the weavers’ demand for yarn had led to the invention of machines for spinning, so the rapid manufacture of yarn rendered it indispensable to facilitate the prior operations in preparing the raw material. Men’s minds had been turned to this object for some time. The operation of carding, whether wool or cotton, was at first done with hand-cards of small size. The first improvement was the invention of stock-cards, one of which was fixed, and the other held in the hand, or afterwards suspended from above, so that the workman could manage a much larger card, and prepare more cotton in a given time. The next and main improvement was placing cards lengthways upon a cylinder, which worked within a concave half cylinder of the same diameter. This process was patented by Paul in 1748. But he derived no profit from this, any more than from his former patent; and it was not until after the improvements in spinning that the method of carding by cylinders was brought into use. Arkwright was not the first to revive it, but he had a great share in perfecting the carding machinery when it had been revived. The raw cotton being carded, an extension, or rather a new application, of the principle of spinning by rollers converted the cardings into rovings, which again were made into yarn fit for the loom by the water-frame, or, as it is now called in an improved form, the _throstle_. Arkwright took out his second patent, December 16, 1775; this included the carding machine, drawing-frame, and roving-frame, a series of engines by which the cotton, from its raw state, was rendered