55 
broad band over the surface of the reel. This facilitates the drying of 
the silk, without which the gluten would bind together the threads of 
the skein as it does those of the cocoons, and thus ruin its commercial 
value. The shaft of the reel carries at one end a friction-wheel, H, 
which rests on the large friction-wheel I, that constantly revolves on the 
shaft N, and thus motion is imparted to the reel. In order to stop the 
reel it is Ouly necessary to raise the wheel H from its bearings by means 
of the lever L. This movement presses the wheel against the brake- 
shoe K, and its motion is at once arrested. 
‘‘ As has been said above, the thread is passed between the agate and 
the reel through the croisure. The making of the croisure consists in 
twisting the thread around itself or another thread so as to consolidate 
its constituent filaments and wring the water from it and thus aid in its 
drying. The mode of the formation of this croisure forms the principal 
distinguishing mark between the French and Italian systems of reeling. 
The former is called the ‘Chambon system.’ Each reeler manages two 
threads. These are passed through separate agates, and after being 
brought together and twisted twenty or thirty times around each other 
are again separated and passed through guiding eyes to the reel. The 
other system, called ‘tavellette,’* consists in passing the thread up 
over a small pulley, C,down over another, D, and then twisting it around 
itself, as shown at M, in Fig. 1, and thence to the reel. 
‘The cocoon filament is somewhat finer in the floss or beginning, thick- 
ens at the point of forming the more compact pod, and then very gradu- 
ally diminishes in diameter until it becomes so fine as to be incapable 
of standing the strain of reeling,” the mean sections at these points be- 
ing about proportional to the figures 30, 40, and 25. “Therefore a thread 
which is made up of five new filaments becomes so small when the co- 
coons from which it is drawn are half unwound as to require an addi- 
tion. This addition might also be made necessary by the rupture of 
one of the constituent filaments. It is here that the skill of the oper- 
ator is called into play. When her experience tells her that the thread 
needs nourishing from either of these causes, she takes the end of the 
filament of one of the cocoons which lie prepared in her basin, and, giv- 
ing it a slight snap or whip-lash movement with the index-finger, causes 
it to wind around or adhere to the running thread, of which it from this 
moment becomes a constituent part. This lancing, as it is called, of the 
end of the filament, although in hand reeling performed in the manner 
described, is also accomplished mechanically, several devices having 
been invented for this purpose. They consist, in general, of a mechan- 
ism (occupying the place of the agate B), which causes a small hook 
to revolve in a horizontal plane about the running thread, and to twist 
around it any end of the filament that may be placed in the path of the 
hook. The reeler, seeing that a new filament is needed, holds the end of 
one in the way of the attaching device, and it is automatically caught.” 
*The trade name of the small pulley mentioned. 
