COTTON-SPINNING 



987 



the spindles being simultaneously whirled slowly to take up the yarn, which was laid 

 on in a conical cop by the duo depression of the faller wire at A, with the spinner's 

 left hand. 



It will be observed that no attempt was made in Hargreaves' machine to ' draw ' 

 the cotton through rollers, which is the chief distinction between ancient and modern 

 spinning. The discovery of this principle really preceded that of Hargreaves, and 

 was the work of Lewis Paul of Birmingham, who, in the year 1738, took out a patent 

 for ' spinning wool and cotton by rollers.' The patentee appears to have received 

 important aid in the working out of the idea from John Wyatt, also of Birmingham, 

 if indeed, the original conception be not attributable to him. It does not appear, 

 however, that the invention attributed to Paul was ever adopted upon any large or 

 useful scale. 



We come now to the spinning machine of Arkwright, the invention of which was 

 almost contemporaneous with that of Hargreaves' jenny. 



Fig. 577 is a diagram of Arkwright's original water-frame spinning machine, called 

 afterwards the water-twist frame. The rovings mounted upon bobbins in the creel A A, 



577 



have their ends led through between the three sets of twin rollers below B B, thence 

 down through the eyelet-hooks upon the end of the flyers of the spindles c, and finally 

 attached to their bobbins. The spindles being driven by the band D D upon their 

 lower part, continuously twist and wind the finished yarn upon the bobbins ; consti- 

 tuting the first unremitting automatic machine for spinning which the world ever saw. 

 The water-twist frame, so called by its inventor because it was first driven by water, 

 is now superseded by the throstle frame, of which the name has no assignable origin. 

 Fig. 578 exhibits a vertical section of this machine, which has upon each side of its 

 frame, a row of spindles with all their subsidiary parts. The bobbins filled with 

 rovings from the bobbin and fly, or the tube frame, are set up in the creel a a, in two 

 ranges, b, c, d, are the three pairs of drawing rollers through which the yarn is 

 attenuated to the proper degree of fineness, upon the principles already explained. 

 At its escape from the front rollers, every thread runs through a guide eyelet e of wire, 

 which gives it the vertical direction down towards the spindles f, g. The spindles, 

 which perform at once and uninterruptedly the twisting and winding-on of the thread 

 delivered by the rollers, are usually made of steel, and tempered at their lower ends. 

 They stand at g in steps, pass at v through a brass bush or collar which keeps them 

 upright, and revolve very rapidly upon their axes. The bobbins A, destined to take 

 up the yarn as it is spun, are placed loosely upon the spindles, and rest, independently 

 of the rotation of the spindles, upon the copping-beam I, but with the intervention of 

 a strip of woollen cloth, the use of which in acting as a ' drag ' upon the motion of tho 



