458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ued, with but slight modifications, down even to the present cent- 

 ury. It was slow, laborious, and extremely painful to the workmen 

 who were compelled to operate the shears. The principle of the 

 machine now used for shearing cloth is a cylinder armed with a 

 knife arranged in a helix a sharp screw turning tangentially in 

 contact with a fixed knife and the cloth upon which the latter 

 rests. Eleazar Hovey, of Canaan, Conn., patented a shearing ma- 

 chine in 1811; and this invention was introduced into France in 

 1812 by George Bass, of Boston, Mass., and there and everywhere 

 is ranked among the most important of the inventions which have 

 brought the woolen manufacture to its present high state. 



Following the shearing, which fine cloths, like broadcloth, 

 undergo twice and three times, are boiling and crabbing. Cloth 

 that is to be " dyed in the piece " now takes its turn in the dye- 

 house, and is run through the dye-kettles in an endless belt over 

 cylinders, as in fulling. Crabbing is a process of scouring by 

 steam, applied separately to each side of the cloth by rolling it 

 upon large metal cylinders, and then rewinding the cloth, reversed, 

 to give it the surface preparatory to dyeing. The process of in- 

 spection, called " perching," intervenes at one point or another, 

 according to the fabric, by which any defects in the manufacture 

 are noted. Knotters and binders remedy these defects, removing 

 knots left by the loom, and mending broken threads. Finally 

 comes the pressing, by which the final finish and luster are given 

 to fine cloths. Until quite recently pressing was done by fold- 

 ing the cloth in layers between boards of smooth pasteboard 

 and pressing them between hot plates in hydraulic presses. A 

 machine now expedites this process by compressing the cloth 

 between rollers heated by steam. The inventor of the pressing 

 machine with steam was Seth Hart, who received a United States 

 patent in 1812. This invention appears twelve years later in 

 Europe, John Jones taking out an English patent for the same 

 machine in 1824. It appears that John Beverley, an owner of 

 woolen and cotton factories in the United States, made the first 

 use of the hydraulic press in 1803. He named it a " hydro- 

 mechanical press." Bowker and Hall, of Boston, constructed a 

 rotating cylinder press, heated by steam, in 1814, which is believed 

 to have contained the first idea of the steam cylinder cloth-press 

 now so universally used. The finishing operations to which 

 worsteds are subjected differ slightly from those applied to 

 woolens, with less of fulling and sometimes with none. Singeing 

 machines are often utilized here, in which the fabric is passed 

 over copper plates, heated to a white heat, so quickly and deftly 

 as to burn from it only the excrescences, leaving the tissue itself 

 unscorched and perfect. Thus completed, the goods are finally 

 boxed and ready for the market. 



