WEBB CITY 



6234 



WEBER 



the cloth, and are stretched parallel and close 

 together. They might be likened to the strings 

 of a harp, except that the space between them 

 is quite small. Attached to the frame is an 

 apparatus by which the heddles are lifted and 

 lowered in response to the pressure of the 

 weaver's foot on a pedal. The heddles consist 

 of two frames from which hang cords attached 

 by a loop to each thread in the warp. As alter- 

 nate threads are attached to each heddle, it 

 follows that when one heddle is raised, every 

 second thread in the warp is lifted also. 



When the warp threads are thus separated, 

 the weaver deftly inserts his shuttle between 

 them and drives the woof across the web. The 

 shuttle is a hollow instrument containing a 

 bobbin on which the weft thread is wound. 

 When the thread has thus been introduced, it 

 is necessary to bring it firmly against the warp, 

 so as to give the cloth the required closeness of 

 texture. This is accomplished by means of the 

 batten, which is suspended from the top of the 

 loom and works to and fro like a pendulum. 



Jacquard Loom. Joseph Jacquard, a Lyons 

 weaver, introduced an important improvement 

 in 1801 by which complicated designs could be 

 woven as easily as simple ones. He contrived 

 an arrangement of hooks, often exceedingly 

 numerous, by which threads could be lifted in 

 any order and the figures wrought neatly into 

 the web. His was the most important single 

 improvement made on the hand loom. 



Power Loom. The power loom, invented by 

 Cartwright in 1784, has since undergone many 

 modifications. It is operated now by steam or 

 by electricity, but the principle is that of the 

 hand loom. The power loom, which is now 

 universal, has added vastly to the world's sup- 

 ply of goods. G.B.D. 



Consult Oelsner's A Handbook of Weaves, 

 translation by Dale ; Nlsbet's Grantmar of Tech- 

 nical Design. 



WEBB CITY, Mo., a city in Jasper County, 

 situated in the southwestern part of the state, 

 five miles northeast of Joplin. It is one of the 

 most important zinc and lead mining centers in 

 Missouri. In addition to numerous mining 

 plants Webb City has machine shops, a foundry, 

 ironworks, a cement-block factory and a brick 

 and tile plant. Features of interest are Lake- 

 side Park, a Federal building, a high school and 

 the Jane Chinn Hospital. Transportation is 

 provided by the Frisco and the Missouri Pacific 

 railroads, and by interurban lines. In 1910 the 

 population was 11,817; in 1916, 13,821 (Federal 

 estimate). 



WEBER, va'bcr, KARL MARIA FRIEDRICH 

 ERNEST VON (1786-1826), a German musical 

 composer, born at Eutin, in Holstein. For 

 many generations his family had been musi- 

 cians, and his father hoped that in this son all 

 the genius of his ancestors had concentrated 

 itself. But Karl Weber had inherited too much 

 of his father's instability of character to be- 

 come a supremely great musician, and, more- 

 over, during the first twelve years of the child's 

 life the family wandered about so much that 

 he received no steady training, either in books 

 or in music. At the age of twelve, however, he 

 received some thorough musical training from 

 a brother of Joseph Haydn, and that same year 

 published six little compositions. Then he 

 went to Munich, where he received more seri- 

 ous instruction, and there, at thirteen years of 

 age, he wrote his first opera, The Power of 

 Love and Wine. Within the next year he 

 composed at Freiberg, Germany, Das Wald- 

 mddchen (The Wood Nymph), and fame was 

 achieved. It was a wonderful piece of work 

 for a fourteen-year-old boy to produce, and not 

 only in Germany, but elsewhere he was hailed 

 as a true genius. 



In 1801, while at Salzburg, the home of 

 Haydn, he wrote a comic opera entitled Peter 

 Schmoll, but this was a failure. Weber's real 

 need was hard study in the theory of music, 

 and this he obtained in 1803 as a pupil of the 

 famous Viennese organist, whom Robert 

 Browning describes so enthusiastically in his 

 Abt Vogler. In 1804 Weber discontinued his 

 lessons with Vogler to become musical director 

 at a theater in Breslau, Germany. The eight- 

 een-year-old boy became egotistical in this high 

 position and soon lost it by his harsh treat- 

 ment of members of the orchestra, whose 

 knowledge of music was superior to his. At 

 length he went to Darmstadt, and in 1810 com- 

 posed the opera Abu Hassan; but Germany 

 was at war with France, and men had little 

 time to listen to operas. Weber, too, was fired 

 with patriotism and set to music many of the 

 battle songs of Korner and wrote the spirited 

 cantata, Strife and Victory. 



Meanwhile, he had been appointed director 

 of the German Opera at Prague, but in 1816 

 resigned to go to Dresden to establish German 

 opera in that city. He began his duties in 1818 

 and for the first time in his life went at the 

 work with determination. There the following 

 year he wrote his most famous opera, Der 

 Freischutz (The Free Shooter), and for weeks 

 German musicians talked of little else. Two 



