EMBROIDERING MACHINE 257 



moisture is evaporated, it is only charred ; it gives off volumes of smoke, but no flame. 

 After a short time the iron is returned to the furnace to be re-heated, the blackened 

 wood is well rubbed with a hard brush to remove the charcoal-powder, which being a 

 bad conductor of heat, saves the wood from material discoloration ; and before the re- 

 application of the heated iron, the wood is again soaked in water, but for a shorter 

 time, as it now absorbs moisture with more facility. 



The rotation of burning, brushing, and wetting is repeated ten or twenty times, or 

 upwards, until, in fact, the wood fills every cavity in the mould, the process being 

 materially influenced by the character and condition of the wood itself, and the degrees 

 to which heat and moisture are applied. The water so far checks the destruction of 

 the wood, or even its change of any kind, that the burned surface, simply cleaned by 

 brushing, is often employed, as it may be left either of a very pale or deep brown, 

 according to the tone of colour required, so as to match old carvings of any age ; or a 

 very little scraping removes the discoloured surface. Perforated carvings are burned 

 upon thick blocks of wood, and cut off with the circular saw. 



EMBROIDERING MACHINE. (Machine a broder, Fr. ; Steckmaschine, Ger.) 

 This art has been from the earliest times a handicraft employment, cultivated on 

 account of its elegance by ladies of rank. But M. Heilmann, of Mulhousc, invented a 

 machine of a most ingenious kind, which enables a female to embroider any design 

 with 80 or 140 needles as accurately and expeditiously as she formerly could do with 

 one. A brief account of this remarkable invention will therefore be acceptable to many 

 readers. It was first displayed at the National Exposition of the Products of Industry 

 in Paris for 1834. 130 needles were occupied in copying the same pattern with perfect 

 regularity, all set in motion by one person. 



Several of these machines are now mounted in France, Germany, and Switzerland, 

 and, with some modifications, in Manchester, Glasgow, and Paisley. 



The price of a machine having 130 needles, and of consequence 260 pincers or 

 fingers and thumbs to lay hold of them, is 5,000 francs, or 2001. sterling ; and it is 

 estimated to do daily the work of fifteen expert hand embroiderers, employed upon 

 the ordinary frame. It requires merely the labour of one grown-up person and two 

 assistant children. The operative must be well taught to use the machine, for he has 

 many things to attend to : with the one hand he traces out, or rather follows the design 

 with the point of the pantograph ; with the other he turns a handle to plant and pull 

 all the needles, which are seized by pincers and moved along by carriages, approaching 

 to and receding from the web, rolling all the time along an iron railway ; lastly, by 

 means of two pedals, upon which he presses alternately with the one foot and the 

 other, he opens the 130 pincers of the first carriage, which ought to give up the needles 

 after planting them in the stuff, and he shuts with the same pressure the 130 pincers 

 of the second carriage, which is to receive the needles, to draw them from the other 

 side, and to bring them back again. The children have nothing else to do than to 

 change the needles when all their threads are used, and to see that no needle misses 

 its pincers. 



This machine may be described under four heads : 1. the structure of the frame ; 2. 

 the disposition of the web ; 3. the arrangement of the carriages ; and 4. the construc- 

 tion of the pincers. 



1. The structure of the frame. It is composed of cast iron, and is very massive. 

 Fig. 824 exhibits a front elevation of it. The length of the machine depends upon 

 the number of pincers to be worked. The figure here given has been shortened con- 

 siderably, so that the drawing might be brought within the page, but the other pro- 

 portions are not disturbed. The breadth of the frame ought to be the same for every 

 machine, whether it be long or short, for it is the breadth which determines the length 

 of the thread to be put into the needles, and there is an advantage in giving it the 

 full breadth of the model machine, fully 100 inches, so that the needles may carry a 

 thread at least 40 inches long. 



2. Disposition of the piece to be embroidered. We have already stated that the 

 pincers which hold the needles always present themselves opposite to the same point, 

 and that in consequence they would continually pass backwards and forwards through 

 the same hole, if the piece was not displaced with sufficient precision to bring succes- 

 sively opposite the tips of the needles every point iipon which they are to work a 

 design, such as a flower. 



The piece is strained perpendicularly upon a large rectangular frame, whose four 

 sides are visible in fig. 824 ; namely, the two vertical sides at F F, and the two hori- 

 zontal sides, the upper and lower at F' F". We see also in the figure two long wooden 

 rollers o and G, whose ends, mounted with iron studs, are supported upon the sides F 

 of the frame, so as to turn freely. These form a system of beams, upon which the 1 

 piece destined to receive, the embroidery is wound and kept vertically stretched to a 

 proper degree, for each of these beams bears upon its end a small ratchet wheel a, g 



VOL. II. S 



