LACE AND LACE-MAKING. 541 



machine for making twisted and traversed net,' he removed to a place 

 where he could secure privacy and the constant sight of lace-making 

 upon the pillow. During the time between 1805 and 1808 he perfected 

 and patented his first machine, by which he could make a breadth of 

 traversed and twisted net three inches wide. It was pronounced by 

 Lord Lyndhurst " the most extraordinary machine ever invented ; but 

 he at once broke it up, and in 1809 patented another, which would 

 make a wider net and had many other advantages. 



" Cushion-made net had half the threads proceeding in wavy lines 

 from end to end of the piece, and may be represented by warp-threads. 

 The other threads, lying between the former, pass from side to side 

 by an oblique course to the right and left, and may be called weft- 

 threads. If the warp-threads could move relatively to the weft-threads 

 so as to effect the twisting and crossing, but without deviating to the 

 right or left hand, and if the w^eft -threads could be placed so that all of 

 them should effect the twisting at the same time, and one-half of them 

 should proceed at each operation to the left and the other half to the 

 right hand (a substitute being also provided for the cushion-pins), lace 

 would be made exactly as on the cushion," The machine patented by 



Fm. 13. 



Heathcote secured these results, and increased the production over 

 the pillow-worker a thousand-fold. The courses of the threads forming 

 the meshes of the bobbin-net frame may be seen in Fig. 13. When 

 taken off and extended to their proper shape the meshes have the ap- 

 pearance shown in Fig. 14. 



This wonderful machine was produced by the unaided mechanical 

 skill of Heathcote ; but in constructing it he met with such diificulties 

 as led him long after to say that, " if it were to be done again, he 

 should probably not attempt to overcome them." He was only twen- 

 ty-six years old when he took the second patent. In 1813 he patented 

 various improvements upon it and reduced the number of movements 

 necessary to make a row of meshes. The machine of 1809 employed 

 sixty movements to make one mesh, which is now done by twelve. 

 It made one thousand meshes a minute, and only five or six could be 

 made by hand. A machine of the present day produces thirty thou- 



' Net in which great numbers of threads were made to twist with or wrap round each 

 other, and to traverse, mesh by mesh, through a part or the entire width of the frame. 



