great article of comfortable and cheap 

 covering for man's person. When 

 gathered and baled it is in a knotted 

 and lumpy state, from which it is rather 

 difficult to extricate the fibers and ar 

 range them for spinning. As we fol 

 low the cotton through the mill we 

 come to these machines in the follow 

 ing order: It goes to the opener first, 

 where it is beaten and spread out so 

 that a strong draft of air drives out 

 much of its impurities; it then goes to 

 the scutcher after being formed into 

 laps; the lap machine makes it into 

 flat folds; the carding engine not only 

 cards it but straightens the fiber and 

 gives it another cleaning; in the draw 

 ing frame it is arranged in loose ropes 

 with the fibers parallel; then the slub- 

 bing frame gives it a slight twist; the 

 intermediate and finishing frames twist 

 it still farther, especially when prepar 

 ing it for the higher numbers; the 

 throstle frame prepares coarse warps; 

 and on the mules, either self-acting or 

 hand, the coarse or fine yarns are spun. 

 In some systems several operations are 

 performed by the same machine. 



Weaving follows. It consists in pass 

 ing threads over and under each other 

 as a stocking is darned, the main differ 

 ence being that in darning the needle 

 passes up and down to get over or un 

 der the threads it meets, while in weav 

 ing the threads met by the moving 

 thread move out of the way so the 

 shuttle may pass straight through the 

 whole width of the cloth. As the shut 

 tle comes back the threads are reversed 

 so that the ones that were up before 

 are now down and those that were 

 down are now up. The machine that 

 holds many threads for this work is the 

 loom. 



An English clergyman by the name 

 of Edmund Cartwright has the credit 

 of inventing the power loom. His de 

 scription of his labors is interesting. 

 We copy from one of his letters: "Hap 

 pening to be in Mattock in the summer 

 of 1784, I fell in company with two 

 gentlemen of Manchester, when the 

 conversation turned on Arkwright's 

 spinning machinery. One of the com 

 pany observed, that as soon as Ark 

 wright's patent expired, so many mills 

 would be erected, and so much cotton 



spun, that hands never could be found 

 to weave it. To this observation I re 

 plied, that Arkwright must then set his 

 wits to work and invent a weaving mill. 

 This brought on a conversation on the 

 subject, in which the Manchester gen 

 tlemen unanimously agreed that the 

 thing was impracticable; and, in de 

 fense of their opinion, they adduced 

 arguments which I certainly was in 

 competent to answer, or even to com 

 prehend, being totally ignorant of the 

 subject, having never at that time seen 

 a person weave. I controverted, how 

 ever, the impracticability of the thing, 

 by remarking that there had lately been 

 exhibited an automaton figure which 

 played at chess." 



" Some little time afterward, a par 

 ticular circumstance recalling this con 

 versation to my mind, it struck me 

 that, as in plain weaving, according to 

 the conception I then had of the busi 

 ness, there could only be three move 

 ments, which were to follow each other 

 in succession, there would be very lit 

 tle difficulty in producing and repeating 

 them. Full of these ideas, I immedi 

 ately got a carpenter and smith to carry 

 them into effect. As soon as the ma 

 chine was finished I got a weaver to 

 put in the warp, which was of such 

 material as sail-cloth is usually made 

 of. To my delight a piece of cloth, 

 such as it was, was the product. As I 

 had never before turned my thoughts 

 to anything mechanical, either in 

 theory or practice, nor had ever seen 

 a loom at work or knew anything of 

 its construction, you will readily sup 

 pose that my first loom must have been 

 a most rude piece of machinery. The 

 warp was placed perpendicularly, the 

 reed fell with a force of at least half a 

 hundred weight and the springs which 

 threw the shuttle were strong enough 

 to have thrown a Congreve rocket. 



"In short, it required the strength of 

 two powerful men to work the machine 

 at a slow rate and only for a short 

 time. Conceiving in my great simplic 

 ity that I had accomplished all that 

 was required, I then secured what I 

 thought a most valuable property by a 

 patent, 4th of April, 1785. This being 

 done, I then condescended to see how 

 other people wove. And you will guess 



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