678 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
wefting contrivance, to be appreciated. Although the hopes of the 
inventor of this cicular loom may not at once be realized, I shall be 
surprised if the principle on which it works does not eventually be- 
come universally adopted for power-weaving machines, especially for 
plain or small-patterned webs. 
Weaving in vast quantities, and cheaply imitating in inferior ma- 
terials rich damasks and brocades of important and elaborate design 
is, I hold, neither wise nor desirable. The use of machine looms for 
this kind of work is therefore to be deprecated. The tender manip- 
ulation required for weaving the varying textures of the finest webs 
made in the eighteenth century, and in China and the East generally, 
is only possible on a loom as sensitive as the perfected draw loom, and 
by a craftsman who, understanding every detail of the mechanism, is 
capable of controlling it. If such perfect work be required it must 
be done on a hand loom. 
This loom, however, need not be as cumbrous as the old draw loom 
nor as noisy and intricate as one fitted with the Jacquard machine. 
If I may don the mantle of the prophet, I should say three things 
will be retained and will continue the tradition of the past in the 
hand loom of the future. With an indication of these I must con- 
clude my lectures. 
1. The skillful manipulation of the hand shuttle for work not too 
wide for it, and of the fly shuttle for broader webs, can not be im- 
proved upon. It will therefore be retained. 
2. The perforated comber board (fig. 45) which, as I have showed, 
was an ancient Chinese invention, must be retained. Probably, 
however, some arrangement of metal needles, such as those of the 
circular loom just described, will be substituted for the string leashes 
with their mails and lingoes. But all the upper complications of 
strings and cords will be dispensed with. 
3. The principle of working out the design by punching holes in a 
band of cards will be retained, although the Jacquard machine itself 
will, I imagine, be superseded by an electromagnet placed above the 
comber board. This magnet will attract the metal needles and 
raise the warp, some arrangement being made.so that only those 
needles wanted for making the required shed will be raised. 
Everything else may go, and new contrivances be introduced, but 
it is on some such hand loom as this that I can imagine the master 
weaver of the future being able, not only to produce webs as exquisite 
as those of the best weavers of the past, but to carry the art forward 
to a higher degree of perfection than it has ever yet attained. 
