INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



as a wire hair-brush, which is simply a modified hand- 

 card, smooths the hair. 



The first improvement over this simple method of 

 carding was made by James Hargreaves, the inventor 

 of the spinning-jenny, of whom we shall have occasion 

 to speak more fully in a moment. He arranged sets 

 of cards by suspending them so that the amount of 

 work performed by a workman was doubled. A 

 little later, in 1762, he was employed by the statesman, 

 Robert Peel, to construct a card ing-machine, which he 

 finally completed in the form of a cylinder bristling 

 with wire teeth. This machine worked in a most 

 satisfactory manner, and is the true parent and pro- 

 totype of the elaborate carding-engines in use at the 

 present time. Various modifications and improve- 

 ments were made in this machine from time to time, 

 but the original principle of the carding-cylinder has 

 been retained in all subsequent machines. 



The layer of cotton enters the carding-engine as a 

 lap of cotton with fibers lying indiscriminately in all 

 directions, passes over successive cylinders designed 

 for certain definite purposes, becomes a thin cloudlike 

 film of cotton fibers lying approximately parallel and 

 free from all foreign particles, and finally emerges 

 through a conelike opening in the form of a white 

 strand, or "sliver "as it is called, composed of untwisted 

 cotton-fibers. From this funnel-shaped tube the sliver 

 is automatically coiled in a can placed to receive it, 

 and is then ready to be sent to the drawing-frames. 



As the slivers from the carding-machines reach the 

 drawing-frames the fibers forming them, while approx- 



[16] 







