... had been reduced to yarn for thousands of years, the same rude contrivance used in ancient Mycenae and Troy by Homer's heroines. There are men alive to-day, whose mothers, like Solomon's virtuous woman, laid their hands to the spindle and distaff,... The 19th Century: A History - Page 37by Robert Mackenzie - 1880 - 83 pagesFull view - About this book
| Andrew Wynter - 1874 - 322 pages
...WILLIAM FAIKBAIRN, the celebrated machinist, has left it on record that when he commenced his career at the beginning of the century, the human hand performed all the work that was done. In these days such a statement seems very strange, and the wonder is, how the craftsmen of the days... | |
| Josiah Strong - 1885 - 262 pages
...woman, laid their hands to the spindle and distaff, and knew no other way. William Fairbairn, an eminent mechanic, states that "in the beginning of the century...all the work that was done, and performed it badly." Methods of travel and communication were as primitive as those of manufacture. "Toward the close of... | |
| Josiah Strong - 1885 - 260 pages
...woman, laid their hands to the spindle and distaff, and knew no other way. William Fairbairn, an eminent mechanic, states that "in the beginning of the century...all the work that was done, and performed it badly." Methods of travel and communication were as primitive as those of manufacture. "Toward the close of... | |
| Josiah Strong - 1885 - 266 pages
...woman, laid their hands to the spindle and distaff, and knew no other way. William Fairbairn, an eminent mechanic, states that "in the beginning of the century...human hand performed all the work that was done, and per^ formed it badly." Methods of travel and communication were as primitive as those of manufacture.... | |
| John Wesley Hanson - 1900 - 718 pages
...was very little mechanical skill a hundred years ago. The great mechanician Fairbairn says that then "the human hand performed all the work that was done,...leaked so abominably that steam could scarcely be kept out of the engine. The roughly-fitted machine emitted a 'horrible noise' as it moved. But the great... | |
| 1889 - 432 pages
...beyond the pace of the old-fashioned stage-coach, and a slow coach at that. At the beginning of this century "the human hand performed all the work that was done, and performed it badly. There-were in use in English and American homes the same primitive means by which the world's wool... | |
| 1869 - 590 pages
...Mngaziuc. Wm. Fairbairn, the celebrated øàchinest, has left it on record that, when he began his career in the beginning of the century, the human hand performed all the work that was done. In these days, such a statement seems very strange, and the wonder is how the craftsmen of the days... | |
| Eneas Sweetland Dallas - 1864 - 736 pages
...remember what William Fairbairn has said, that when he began life, at the commencement of the present century, the human hand performed all the work that was done. And how ill it was performed, we have the testimony of Watt, who experienced the greatest difficulty in... | |
| |