COTTON-SPINNING 



characteristics, and the difficulty of adapting them to the kind of production for which 

 American cotton had proved eminently suitable, laid upon persons engaged in cotton- 

 spinning, at that time, a task which required mucli ingenuity and patience. The 

 result has been, however, to improve greatly the technical methods used in the art, 

 and especially as we have stated, in the details of the preparation. This end has not 

 been reached by any fundamental alteration, but rather by a number of minor improve- 

 ments, which are the result of a closer study and a better knowledge of the working 

 qualities of the fibre in its many varieties than had previously been thought necessary, 

 and the consequence has been a more careful and successful treatment in every part 

 of the chain of operations under consideration. 



The great object to be kept in view throughout the ' preparation ' is to produce a 

 roving as free from impurity as possible, and as uniform in weight and texture as 

 it can be made, consistently with due economy. For the former end, the efficiency 

 and right management of the scutching and carding machinery are requisite ; for the 

 latter a due adjustment of the draughts and doublings, regard being always had 

 towards the fineness and quality of the yarn required. 



Without attempting anything in the way of a history of cotton-spinning, it may be 

 well to refer briefly to some of the principal stages through which this, one of the 



earliest of the industrial occupations of 

 civilised life, has at length reached its 

 present advanced position. Except the 

 spindle and distaff, the use of which was 

 purely handicraft, the earliest contrivance 

 for the production of yarn was the spiu 

 ning wheel of ancient India (fig. 575), an 

 instrument very like the common ' wheel," 

 which, until the dawn of this mechanical 

 age extinguished it, was the familiar com- 

 panion of every English spinster. 



The first .successful effort to improve 

 upon this primitive piece of mechanism 

 was that of James Hargreaves, who about 

 the year 1764 invented his 'spinning 

 jenny,' which differed little- from the 

 spinning wheel, except in enabling one 

 person to spin simultaneously upon seve- 

 ral spindles, instead of one. 

 Fig. 576 represents the original jenny of Hargreaves, which contained from 16 to 

 40 spindles. The soft cords of rovings wound in double conical cops upon skewers 



were placed in the inclined frame at c ; the spindles for first twisting and thenwinding- 

 on the spun yarn were set upright in steps and bushes at A, being furnished near their 

 lower ends with whorls, and endless cords, which were driven by passing round the 

 long-revolving drum of tin-plate, E. D is the clasp or clove, having a handle for 

 lifting its upper jaw a little way, in order to allow a few inches of the soft roving to 

 bo introduced. * The compound clove D being now pushed forward upon its friction 

 wheels to A, was next gradually drawn backward, while the spindles were made to 

 revolve with proper speed by the right hand of the operative turning the flywheel B. 

 Whenever one stretch was thereby spun, the clove frame was slid home towards A ; 



