Travels In The United States Of America; Commencing In The Year 1793, And Ending In 1797. With The Author's Journals Of His Two Voyages Across The Atlantic By William Priest
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- The Manufactories In This Country That Have Fallen
Under My Observation Are One Of Rifles At Lancaster, Another Of Musquets
At Connecticut, And At German Town, In Pennsylvania, A Peculiar Sort Of
Winter Stockings.
An American has lately procured a patent from Congress,
for cutting brads out of sheet iron with an engine.
The american iron is
of an excellent quality, and possesses a great degree of malleability,
which perhaps suggested the first idea of this invention. The following
extract from the advertisement of the patentee will enable you, to form
some judgment of this singular undertaking: "He begs leave to observe
their superiority to english-wrought brads consists in their being quite
regular in their shape, so much so, that ten thousand may be drove through
the thinnest pine board, without using a brad-awl, or splitting the board.
They have the advantage also of being cut _with the grain_ of the iron;
others are cut _against_ it. He has already three engines at work, which
can turn out two hundred thousand per day."
Another patent has been granted for making the teeth of cotton and wool
cards by an engine, which is supposed to be a similar process.
There are also manufactories of cotton, sail cloth, gun-powder, glass,
&c., but of no great consequence.
Their sawing-mills are numerous, and well constructed; this circumstance,
and the great quantity of timber, mast, spars, &c., with which this
country abounds, enable them to build vessels considerably under what you
can afford in England, though the wages of a shipwright are now two
dollars and a quarter per day.
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