AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



imately parallel, as just stated, are not sufficiently so, 

 nor distributed with the necessary uniformity, to be 

 used immediately for making yarn. It is the 

 function of the drawing-frame, therefore, to per- 

 fect the arrangement of the fibers and to combine a 

 certain number of slivers, usually six, into another 

 "rove" of cotton, which has the general appearance 

 of the original sliver. The perfecting of the parallel 

 arrangement of the fibers is done by the ingenious 

 arrangement of pairs of rollers, each successive pair 

 acting a little more rapidly than the preceding, and 

 thus "pulling into line," as it were, the successive 

 fibers. This type of machine was first devised by 

 Sir Richard Arkwright, whose invention will be de- 

 scribed more fully presently. 



Up to this point the machines engaged in handling 

 the cotton have been employed in preparing it for the 

 final twisting into strands and threads, rather than in 

 actually preparing such threads. But on emerging 

 from the drawing-frames, it goes to a series of three 

 more frames, which still further draw out the cotton, 

 and wind it upon bobbins. In the first of these ma- 

 chines, or slubbing-frame proper, the end of the sliver 

 is seized by rollers, twisted and wound upon bobbins 

 which are then transferred to the intermediate frame. 

 This is a machine built on practically the same general 

 principles as the slubbing-frame, in which the two 

 strands of the bobbins from the slubber are wound 

 into one. The last of these series of machines is one 

 known as the roving-frame, in which the cotton yarn 

 is still further twisted and reduced in size. 

 VOL. ix. 2 L 1 7 3 



