The great epoch of the sewing machine, however, begins with Elias Howe and the sewing machine patented by him Sept. 10, 1846, No. 4,750. Almost everyone is familiar with the modern Howe sewing machine, and it will be therefore more interesting to present the form in which it originally appeared. This is shown in Fig. 144. A curved eye-pointed needle was carried at the end of a pendent vibrating lever, which had a motion simulating that of a pick-ax in the hands of a workman. The needle took its thread from a spool situated above the lever, and the tension on the thread was produced by a spring brake whose semicircular end bore upon the spool, the pressure being regulated by a vertical thumb screw. The work was held in a vertical plane by means of a horizontal row of pins projecting from the edge of a thin metal “baster plate,” to which an intermittent motion was given by the teeth of a pinion. Above, and to one side of the “baster plate” was the shuttle race, through which the shuttle carrying the second thread was driven by two strikers, which were operated by two arms and cams located on the horizontal main shaft. As will be seen, this machine bears but little resemblance to any of the modern machines, but it embodied the three essential features which characterize most all practical machines, viz.: a grooved needle with the eye at the point, a shuttle operating on the opposite side of the cloth from the needle to form a lock stitch, and an automatic feed. [Illustration: FIG. 144.--HOWE’S SEWING MACHINE, 1846.]