356 Mr. Treadwell’s Description of a Machine, 
pressed between them by the bobbins, and passes along in the 
hatchel-belt until it arrives near the end F” of the rails F #. Now 
as the rails pass beyond the pulley B’, to the right, and as the 
clearers (see fig. 6), as has been before described, pass on the 
top of the rails, it is evident that they will be raised upwards, 
upon the hatchel-points; and as the roving of hemp is always 
above them, this also must be lifted out of those points. Suppose 
that the end of the roving be then passed through the gatherer 
X, and that it be made to enter between the drawing-rollers. If 
the drawing-rollers are now turned faster than the hatchel-belt 
carrying the roving, the roving must be drawn out through the 
hatchel-points by the rollers, forming a filament as much smaller 
than the original roving, as the rollers move faster than the 
hatchel-belt. If, however, the relative motions be constant, then 
these proportions will be true only when the mean size of the 
filament is compared with the mean size of the roving, for the 
roving is not supposed to be of equal size throughout, and more- 
over the ends of the fibres of hemp cannot be distributed at 
equal distances in it; hence more of these ends will be taken 
into the rollers together at some times than at others. Now 
when many ends meet the rollers together, many fibres must be 
drawn out of the hatchel together and the filament be made 
larger than at other places, where the ends of fibres, by being 
distributed in the roving at greater distances, meet the rollers 
less frequently. To prevent, as much as possible, this inequality 
in the filament, I use the apparatus now to be described, which 
I call the regulator and the comb. A small cast-iron frame 
eee, &c. is fixed upon the wooden frame 4 4, as seen in the 
drawings. The shaft ff is made to run on proper centres, 
fixed in the frame e e, and there are placed upon it the wheels 
gg’. (The shaft ff with its connexions is drawn separate 
