254 BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS. 



twisted the strength of the line is impaired. The cotton is spun ex- 

 pressly from selected stock in this country, and the silk, also, is spun 

 here. The best silk isTsatlee machine twist; the genuineness of the 

 stock can not be doubted, if judged by the foreign chai-acter of its 

 tickets : 



"Hung yu Silk Hong. Yueliee chop. By selecting No. 1, Fine re-reeled 

 Tsatlee silk. When obliged to Merchants best owing their regards, please to 

 nolice carefully of our sign, are without mistaken. This chop is myself reeled 

 true Tsatlee Thown Silks." 



More can not be asked. This silk is spun at silk factories and de- 

 livered on bobbins. The fineness of some of it may be judged by the 

 fact that 3,200 yards of a thread weighs only one ounce, and yet the 

 threads run sometimes 2,000 yards without a break. The grass lines, 

 sold under the names of Japanese grass, sea grass, and catty grass, 

 are all male of raw silk. The yarns of flax are wound on bob- 

 bins, and those of cotton are " beamed " or wound on a cylinder in 

 such a way that they can be run off it without tangling. 



The twisted lines are made in a "walk," a narrow shed about 400 

 feet long. At the head of the walk are two machines, driven by steam. 

 Tliey consist of pulleys, with long ropes for belts running off to the foot 

 of the shed ; also of a lot of spindles, turning very rapidly, and lines 

 riwining overhead along the walk enable men at any point to move 

 levers or stop and start the machinery at will. Two cars run on tracks 

 down the walk ; they carry the beams or cylinders of thread or the bob- 

 bins. The operator places the bobbins on pins on the cars, so that the 

 threads may unwind; the car is brought up to the machine; he 

 gathers up the threads in groups of three, and ties each group to a 

 sphidle in the machine. When all the 24 spindles are furnished 

 with threads, he starts the machine, the spindles turn and twist each 

 group of three threads into a strand ; at the same time the car moves 

 slowly along to unwind the threads from the bobbins as fast as the 

 twist takes them up. The operator walks behind or beside the car 

 to watch the yarns, remove lumps, and impurities from them, or to 

 break off defective portions of a thread. The car at intervals passes 

 under a frame hanging over the track ; this frame is provided with 

 wire hoops or fingers that descend automatically and hook under the 

 Btrands after the car has passed, to sustain them, so that the weight 

 of the long strings may not interfere with their twisting evenly in 



