672 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
gether, and to wind up the woven cloth. All these, except the second, 
are comparatively easy to arrange for, even in broad weaving, by 
means of a power-driven turning shaft furnished with cranks and ec- 
centrics, fitted up in some convenient position in the loom. In narrow 
weaving the spaces of warp are so small that the passing through 
of the several shuttles presents no difficulty ; consequently the inven- 
tion of a practical automatic machine loom for narrow weaving was 
an early one. 
Many attempts were made in the seventeenth and early part of the 
eighteenth century to weave broad webs by power, but they all failed 
to solve the problem of the shuttle. It has been partially overcome 
since, but the great defect of the machine loom to-day is in the driv- 
ing and catching of the shuttle. 
The invention which partially solved 
the difficulty and eventually rendered 
the machine loom practicable was the fly 
shuttle, intended by John Kay, its in- 
ventor, for use on the hand loom. Its 
purpose was to enable the weaver to 
weave, without the aid of an assistant, 
wider webs than he could manipulate 
with the hand shuttle. 
Figure 57 represents the batton used 
for the fly shuttle and should be com- 
pared with the hand shuttle (fig. 56). 
The difference between hand shuttling 
and fly shuttling can almost be distin- 
guished by comparing the two shuttles 
used. The hand shuttle is slightly 
curved and adapted nicely to the posi- 
tion of the weaver’s fingers. The fiy shuttle, on the contrary, is 
rigidly straight, so that it flies along in front of the reed, without any 
bias, from one end of the race to the other. 
Comparing the battons, it is seen that the race block of the fly- 
shuttle batton is elongated at the ends. On these ends the shuttle can 
stand clear of the cloth which is being woven, and which is, of course, 
never wider than the reed. 
These elongated ends have a bar of wood so fixed in the front that 
there is just room for the shuttle to run in and rest between it and 
the back of the shuttle box, as the elongated end is called. 
Above the shuttle there is a thin, smcoth iron bar, and on this the 
driver (enlarged at F), made of tough leather, is fitted so that it will 
easily slip from end to end of the box. Both boxes are furnished 
with drivers and are fitted up in exactly the same manner. The two 
Fic. 56.—Hand shuttling. 
Se es 
