INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



JOHN KAY AND THE FLYING SHUTTLE 



What was needed was some device for weaving 

 cloth more rapidly, and as is usual in such cases of 

 necessity, an inventor soon appeared whose invention 

 revolutionized the weaving industry so completely that 

 the market, instead of being overstocked with cotton 

 yarn, was quickly depleted, the new weaving- machines 

 consuming the supply faster than it could be produced. 

 The inventor of this new weaving-machine was John 

 Kay, an Englishman, and his invention was the famous 

 flying shuttle, invented in 1738. 



This machine did for weaving what Hargreaves' 

 spinning-jenny did for spinning it doubled and quad- 

 rupled the power of the weaver. In the older looms 

 in use before the time of Kay's invention, the operation 

 of weaving was performed by two men working at a 

 single loom, one man throwing the shuttle carrying 

 the weft thread across the warp threads while the other 

 man caught it in his hand. In the flying-shuttle loom 

 the work of catching the shuttle was done mechanic- 

 ally, one man being thus enabled to work the loom 

 without assistance. As the second man was no longer 

 required, he, too, could take charge of a loom and thus 

 the weaving output be doubled. The principles in- 

 volved in this machine were practically the same as 

 those in modern looms, although it has taken the 

 efforts and genius of an army of inventors since Kay's 

 first invention to produce the wonderful modern loom. 



Reference has been made in the preceding chapter 



[42] 



