298 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



quality and to secure elongation and parallel arrangement of the 

 fibers." 



In the early days of the manufacture the best results were 

 only attainable in worsted yarns from long-fibered fleece. The 

 English wools are commonly called combing-wools for this reason, 

 and it was the possession of this fleece of an unrivaled quality 

 which made England the birthplace of the worsted manufacture, 

 and has kept it at the front in this process. 



One of the results of improved machinery has been to remove 

 any distinction between woolens and worsteds based upon the dif- 

 ference between the wools employed in the two processes. Short 

 wool of merino blood can now be combed as successfully as the 

 longer staple. The processes of treatment, however, continue to 

 differ radically. This difference, as already seen, is primarily 

 created by the introduction of the combing machine, an instru- 

 ment unknown to the wool manufacture proper. 



Short-stapled wool is carded before going to the comb ; but the 

 long wools, to avoid the breaking of the fibers which would result 



from carding, are pre- 

 pared for combing by 

 screw gill-boxes, so con- 

 structed as to open, sepa- 

 rate, and straighten the 

 fibers. Five or six slivers 

 obtained from the first 

 gill-box may be run into 

 one by the use of a second 

 gilling machine, so inter- 

 mingling them that the 

 deficiencies of one sliver 

 are supplied by its neigh- 

 bor. The half-dozen sliv- 

 ers are thus drawn into 

 one smaller than any of 

 those of which it is com- 

 posed. This operation is 

 continued through other gill-boxes when fine counts of yarn are 

 desired, until the fibers have become thoroughly separated and 

 parallel, to facilitate the work of the combing machine. 



This machine is the mechanical wonder of the wool industry. 

 It performs with automatic precision a series of complicated 

 movements long deemed to be only capable of accomplishment by 

 hands guided by human intelligence. For years after the idea of 

 the machine took germ, it was the hope and the despair of many 

 inventors in England and on the Continent. The hand-worker 

 remained in exclusive control of the delicate operation until 1830. 



Fig. 14. A Gilling Machine. 



