338 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



Mr. John Duncan of Glasgow, the inventor of the 

 tambouring machinery, was one of those unfortunate 

 individuals who benefit their species without benefiting 

 themselves, and who died in the meridian of life the 

 victim of poverty and of national ingratitude. He con- 

 ceived the idea of bringing into action a great number of 

 needles at the same time, in order to shorten the process 

 by manual labour, but he at first was perplexed about the 

 diversification of the pattern. This difficulty, however, he 

 soon surmounted by employing two forces at right angles 

 to each other, which gave him a new force in the direction 

 of the diagonal of the parallelogram, whose sides were 

 formed by the original forces. His first machine was 

 very imperfect ; but after two years' study he formed a 

 company, at whose expense six improved machines were 

 put in action, and who secured the invention by a patent. 

 At this time the idea of rendering the machine automatic 

 had scarcely occurred to him; but he afterwards suc- 

 ceeded in accomplishing this great object, and the tam- 

 bouring machines were placed under the surveillance of a 

 steam-engine. Another patent was taken for these 

 improvements. The reader who desires to have a minute 

 account of these improvements, and of the various parts of 

 the machinery, will be amply gratified by perusing the 

 inventor's own account of the machinery in the article 

 CHAINWOEK in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. At present 

 it will be sufficient to state, that the muslin to be tam- 

 boured was. suspended vertically in a frame, which was 

 capable of being moved both in a vertical and a horizontal 

 direction. Sixty or more needles lying horizontal occu- 

 pied a frame in front of the muslin web. Each of these 

 working-needles, as they are called, was attended by a 

 feeding-needle, which by a circular motion round the 

 working-needle lodged upon the stejm of the latter the loop 

 of the thread. The sixty needles then penetrated the web, 



