656 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
For double harness weaving, too, the leashes of the heddles of the 
frout harness have an important peculiarity which must be described ; 
for, though simple, it plays a most essential part in all pattern weay- 
ing with compound harness. 
In this class of weaving each warp thread passes first through the 
eyes of the figure harness and then through those of the front harness, 
which makes the ground. Now, if both harnesses are alike fitted 
with leashes having the ordinary short eyes, only the front one can 
affect the shed. This is because any threads raised by the back 
harness are prevented from effectually rising in the reed by the leashes 
of the front harness. 
If, however, the front harness eyes are made long enough to allow 
the warp threads to be lifted, the 
back harness will be free to affect 
the shed at the same time as the 
front harness, or to affect it alter- 
nately as may be required. The 
diagram (fig. 48) will make this 
clear. 
If, now, we turn again to figure 
42, the part played by the figure 
harness can readily be explained. 
The points to notice are: (1) 
Two extra wefts are required for 
weaving in the design which has 
two separate colors of its own; 
(2) the figure is formed by allow- 
ing the colored weft in certain 
places to pass over two threads of 
the warp instead of one; (3) the 
necessity for five heddles in the 
figure harness is to be gathered from the fact that five different com- 
binations of pairs of rising threads are required to complete the 
design; (4) as the figure throughout is made by two threads rising 
together, two threads together may be entered in each eye of the 
figure harness. 
If this explanation is clear, it is only necessary to add that in silk 
weaving not only 2, but sometimes as many as 20, warp threads are 
entered in each leash eye of the figure harness. Therefore, it is 
evident that the possible scale of ornamentation and scope for the 
designer are immensely increased. For instance, this figure woven 
on two threads, as explained, on a fine silk warp of 400 threads to an 
inch, would only occupy the sixteenth of an inch in width and height, 
but if 20 threads were entered together in each leash eye of the figure 
harness the size of the ornament would be increased 10 diameters 
and would occupy nearly a square inch of surface. 
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Fic. 42.—Double harness weaving. 
