MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 53 



ever, in place of blocks. Several specimens have been exhibited, 

 which give considerable promise. The difficulty of printing Brussels 

 carpets consists in getting the color to penetrate into the pile with- 

 out spreading. This is only to be accomplished by repeated impres- 

 sions; hence the difficulty of using blocks or rollers, so that they 

 shall keep register with different colors, and at the same time repeat 

 accurately several times on the same surfaces. This difficulty, it is 

 believed, has been overcome by the above invention. Abridged from 

 the Proceedings of the Royal Institution. 



THE CARPET MANUFACTURE IN AMERICA. 



THE most extensive manufactories in the United States are at Thom- 

 sonville, Conn. They use 10,000,000lbs. of wool, and 10,000lbs. of 

 flax-yarn per annum. They manufacture three-ply, Brussels, and Ax- 

 minster carpetings of the richest patterns, the weaving at present being 

 mostly done on hand-looms ; they are, however, about introducing 

 power-looms into the factory, for weaving rugs and Axminster car- 

 pets. The wool for Axminster carpeting is first woven into a web, and 

 afterwards cut in strips, forming what is called chenille card; this 

 is done upon a machine invented by Messrs. Davidson and Parks, of 

 Springfield, Vt., which is the first and only one of the kind in the 

 United States. The machine has over 200 cutters, or knives, which 

 are attached to a cylinder, making some 300 revolutions, and cutting 

 two full yards of the web per minute into strips, which being passed 

 over a grooved cylinder, heated by having hot irons inserted within 

 it, is prepared for weaving. Besides this large carpet-establishment, 

 there is in this village a factory, 100 by 43 feet in dimensions, and 

 five stories high, for the manufacture of knit shirts, drawers, and 

 fancy ginghams. This establishment has about 30 sets of wool-cards, 

 and 25 or 30 gingham looms. Scientific American. 



LOOM FOR WEAVING CARPETS. 



MR. JAMES M'KENZIE, of Schenectady, N. Y., has made some im- 

 provements on the carpet-loom, which are claimed to be important. 

 They consist, 1st, in a new mode of arranging and operating the 

 shuttle-boxes ; 2d, in a new match-motion, or way, graduating the 

 let-off speed of the warp-beam, and the take-up speed of the cloth- 

 beam ; 3d, in a new stop-motion. The shuttle-boxes are of <a differ- 

 ent form and motion from both the sliding and the rotary boxes now 

 in use, and are termed quadrant boxes. They are quarto-rotative, 

 and are shifted by a back spring at any point desired, being set for 

 this purpose. The match motion is difficult of explanation ; the 

 principle of it consists in having a guide apron or rest, pressing by a 

 spring against the warp and against the cloth-beams, and according 

 as there is more or less yarn on the one beam and cloth on the other, 

 to require a corresponding increase of surface motion on the warp- 

 beam, and a decrease on the web-beam, a blade from the lathe at 

 every stroke is so guided by the guards or rests on the warp and web 



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