is finally removed from the cards and the combs by the doffer. The cotton is stripped from the doffer by the doffer knife and in the form of delicate, flat narrow ribbons, which are drawn through a small funnel to consolidate them, and finally delivered in a coiled form into a tall tin can. The material is then carried to a drawing frame, which takes the spongy slivers, and, carrying them through successive sets of rollers moving at increased speed, elongates, equalises, straightens and "doubles " them, and finally condenses them into two or more rolls by passing the same through a trumpet-shaped funnel. As the yarns still need to be twisted, they are passed through a roving frame similar to a drawing frame. An ingenious device connected with the winding of the roving yarns upon bobbins may be here noted. Formerly the bobbins on which the yarns were wound increased in speed as they were filled, thus endangering and often breaking the thread, and at all times increasing the tension. In 1823 Asa Arnold of Rhode Island invented "a differential motion" by which the velocity of the bobbin is kept uniform. The roving having been reduced to proper size for the intended number of yarns, now goes to the spinning machine, to still further draw out the threads and give to them a more uniform twist and tenuity. The spinning machine is simply an improved form of Crompton's mule, already described.

Great as have been the improvements in many matters in spindle structure, the drawing, the stretching and the twisting still remain fundamentally the same in principle as in the singing throstle of Arkwright and the steady mule of Crompton. And yet so great and rapid has been the advancement of inventions as to details and to meet the great demand, that the ma

chinery of half a century ago has been almost entirely discarded and supplanted by different types. A great improvement on the spinning frame of the 18th century is the ring frame invented by Jenks. In this the spindles, arranged vertically in the frame, are driven by bands from a central cylinder, and project through apertures in a horizontal bar. A flanged ridge around each aperture forms a ring and affords a track for a little steel hoop called a traveller, which is sprung over the ring. The traveller guides the thread on to the spool. As the spindles revolve, the thread passing through the traveller revolves it rapidly, and the horizontal bar rising and falling has the effect of winding the yarn alternately and regularly upon the spools.

The bobbins of the spindle frame were found not large enough to contain a sufficient amount of yarn to permit of a long continuous operation when the warp came to be applied, and besides there were occasional defects in the thread which could not be detected until it broke, if the yarn was used directly from the bobbins. So to save much time and trouble spooling machines were invented which wind the yarn from the bobbins holding 1200 to 1800 yards, to large spools, each holding 18,000 to 20,000 yards; and then by passing the yarn through fine slots in guides which lead to the spool, lumps or weak places, which would break the yarns at the guide, could at once be discovered and the yarn retied firmly, so that there would be no further breaking in the warper. After the yarn is finally spooled it is found that its surface is still rough and covered with fuzz. It is desirable, therefore, that it shall be smoothed out and be given somewhat of a lustre before weaving. These final operations are performed

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by the warping and dressing machines. In the warping machine the threads are drawn between rollers, the tension of which can be regulated, and then through a reed," a comb-shaped device which separates the threads, and then finally wound upon a large cylinder. In this machine a device is also arranged which operates to stop the machine at once if any thread is broken. When the cylinder is filled it is then taken to the dresser, which in its modern and useful form is known as the "slusher," by which the yarns are drawn through hot starch, the superfluous starch squeezed out, and the yarns, kept separated all the time, dried by passing them around large drying cylinders, or through a closed box heated by steam pipes, and then wound upon the loom beam or cylinder.

In weaving, as in spinning, however advanced, complicated and improved the means may be beyond the hand methods and simple looms of past ages, the general principles in the process are still the same. These means, generally and broadly speaking, consist of a frame for two sets of threads, a roller, called the warp beam, for receiving and holding the threads which form the warp, a cloth beam upon which the cloth is wound as it is woven, the warp threads, being first laid parallel, carried from the warp beam and attached to the cloth beam; means called heddles, which with their moving frames constitute "a harness," consisting of a set of vertical strings or rods having central loops through which the threads are passed, two or more sets of which receive alternate threads, and by the reciprocation of which the threads are separated into sets, decussated, forming between them what is called a shed through which the shuttle is thrown; means for throwing the

shuttle; and means, called the batten, lay or lathe, for forcing or packing the weft tight into the angle formed by the opened warp and so rendering the fabric tight and compact, and then the motive power for turning the cloth beam and winding the cloth as fast as completed. It is along these lines that the inventors have wrought their marvellous changes from hand to power looms.

Prior to 1800, in the weaving of figures into cloths, it was customary to employ boys to pull the cords in the loom harness in order to arrange the coloured threads in their relative positions. In that year appeared at the front Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French mechanician and native of Lyons, whose parents were weavers, a prolific inventor in his youth, a wayward wanderer after fortune and a wife, a soldier in the Revolution, losing a son fighting by his side, eking out a poor living with his wife's help at straw weaving, finally employed by a silk manufacturer, and while thus engaged, producing that loom which has ever since been known by his name. This loom was personally inspected by Napoleon, who rewarded the inventor with honours and a pension. It was then demolished by a mob and its inventor reviled, but it afterward became the pride of Lyons and the means of its renown and wealth in the weaving of silks of rich designs.

The leading feature of the Jacquard loom consists of a chain of perforated pattern cards made to pass over a drum, through which cards certain needles pass, causing certain threads of the warp to rise and fall, according to the holes in the cards, and thus admitting at certain places in the warp coloured weft threads thrown by the shuttle, and reproducing the pattern which is perforated in the the cards. The

Jacquard device could be applied to any loom, and it worked a revolution in the manufacture of figured goods. The complexity and expensiveness of Jacquard's loom were greatly reduced by subsequent improvements. In 1854 M. Bonelli constructed an electric loom in which the cards of the Jacquard apparatus are superseded by an endless band of tinfoiled paper, which serves as an electrical conductor to operate the warp thread needles, which before had each been actuated by a spiral spring. The Jacquard loom was also greatly improved by the English inventors, Barlow, Taylor, Martain and others.

Radcliffe and Johnson, also of England, had invented and introduced the machines for dressing the yarns in one operation before the weaving; Horrocks and Marsland of Stockport greatly improved the adaptation of steam to the driving of looms, and Roberts of Manchester made striking advances in their mechanical parts and in bringing them to their present state of wonderful efficiency.

In America, in 1836, George Crompton of Taunton, Massachusetts, commenced a series of inventions in power looms for the manufacture of fancy woollen goods, and in the details of such looms generally, particularly in increasing the speed of the shuttle, which vastly increased the production of such goods and gave to his looms a world-wide reputation.

E. B. Bigelow of Massachusetts in 1848 invented a power loom, which was exhibited at the Exhibition at London in 1851, and astonished the world by his exhibition of carpets superior to any woven by hand. By the later improvements, and the aid of steam power, a single American Bigelow carpet loom can turn out now one hundred yards of Brussels carpet in a day, far superior in quality to any carpet which