LOOM AND SPINDLE—HOOPER. 659 
The drafted design at No. 2 is made on 18 lateral squares, so that 
it would repeat four times in the width of the web to be woven. 
The word “comber” board is derived from an older word, 
“camber,” which used to signify the repeats of a design as regards 
width. The board was called a camber board because the holes 
pierced in it were accurately apportioned to the number of threads in 
each pattern repeat, and the width of the total number of holes was 
the same as the width of the warp. 
In this comber board (fig. 45) there are holes for four repeats 
of 18 leashes, but only six leashes of each repeat are shown in posi- 
tion, as more would confuse the drawing. 
The bottom board of the triangular box C is pierced with 18 holes, 
the same number as that of the threads in each repeat of the design. 
Let us suppose the comber board to be filled with leashes, one sus- 
pended in each hole; also that 18 cords are hanging through the holes 
in the triangular box at D. 
The monture builder now connects, with fine cord, the first, nine- 
teenth, thirty-seventh, and fifty-fifth leashes, which are the first in 
every repeat with the first hanging cord at D. 
He next takes the second leash in each repeat, and connects it in 
lke manner with the second cord at D. 
He proceeds thus in regular order to connect leashes and top cords 
until he reaches the last of the repeats, leashes 18, 36, 54, and 72. 
When this work is done it is apparent that if any one cord at D 
is drawn up into the triangular box the corresponding leashes in every 
repeat will be drawn up through the comber board to a correspond- 
ing height. 
Moreover, if 72 threads of warp are entered in the leash eyes, the 
selected leashes as they rise will raise the threads necessary for the 
formation of the pattern shed. 
This is the essential portion of the draw loom, and so far is it. 
from being obsolete that all the pattern-weaving looms of to-day, 
whether worked by hand or power, are identical with it. Thus the 
immense textile industry of modern times is indebted to and linked 
with the invention and industry of ancient China. 
Vast numbers of different methods of drawing up the cords of the 
loom were no doubt practiced in the East. Most frequently, as in the 
Chinese picture (fig. 44, pl. 10), the weaver’s assistant who did this 
work sat above the loom drawing the cords line by line according to 
a written or painted draft. 
There is no evidence to show what form this part of the Loon had 
assumed when the art of silk pattern weaving was introduced into 
Sicily in the twelfth century. The rapid devel apreet of silk weav- 
ing in Sicily and Italy, which we know took place makes it more 
than probable that the convenient method of drawing the cords from 
