488 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1899. 



Ill tlu> modern power loom the parts b}' which these operations are 

 performed are very intricate and rapid in their composition and action; 

 but in the simplest form of apparatus, from which the power loom 

 was originally derived, a few sticks and strings and the cunning hand 

 of the operator take the place of machinery, and time is no object. A 

 careful examination of an}' power loom will demonstrate the oft- 

 repeated fact that most of the machiner}', after all, is a substitute for 

 the human lingers. 



Fig. 1. 



CHIPPEWA HEDDI.K FRAME, CARVED FROM A SIX(iLE PIECE OF WOOH. 

 Cat. No. 3648. U.S.N.M. Collected by Henry R. Schoolcraft. 



DEFINITION OF HEDDLE FRAMES. 



There are in the U. S. National Museum a collection of heddle 

 frames, and photographs of others from different parts of P^urope and 

 America, each one of which was designed to form the "sheds'' in 

 weaving belts and garters — that is, to raise or lower different sets of 

 warp filaments in the manner to be now described. A series of healds 

 are attached to or form parts of a heddle frame, which sometimes 

 hangs free on the warp threads, as in the frontispiece, and sometimes 

 is attached solidly to a frame or box, or to the body of the operator. 

 (Compare lig. 1(5 with Plate 3.) In the former of these classes the 

 "sheds" are opened by the weaver, who lifts or lowers the heddle with 

 the hand. In the second class, the "sheds" are formed by raising or 

 lowering the inner ends of the warp itself, half of its tilaments being 



