368 



MEMOIR OF DANIEL TREADTVELL. 



included patents for preparing and spinning the hemp and tarring the yarn. These processes, 

 which had been performed entirely by hand, were by my inventions transferred to auto- 

 matic machines, with a vast saving in the cost of production and improvement in quality of 



man 



Machines, it might be added, on which a rope-yarn is spun by women's hands 

 with almost as much facility as a cotton thread on a spinning-jenny. 



The state of this art at the time of Mr. Treadwell's first invention is described in 

 the following introduction to a paper contributed by him to the American Academy, 

 and published in the Memoirs for 1833, entitled " A Description of a Machine called 

 a Gypsey, for spinning Hemp and Flax. 



j? 



" In all the methods of spinning cotton and wool, whether by the common wheel, or by more 

 elaborate machinery, the material is subjected to a previous process of carding- The effect of 

 this operation is to disengage the fibres from all entanglement with each other, and to leave 

 them in a soft and uniform roll or roving. The spinning consists wholly in elongating these 

 rolls or rovings, and binding the fibres together by a twist. Without the preparation by card- 

 ing, or some preparation of like kind, it would be impossible to produce anything like the 

 evenness requisite to the formation of good yarns, by any known means of spinning. 



" The great length of the fibres of flax, and more particularly those of hemp, prevents the 

 possibility of subjecting either of these materials to the process of carding, and the common 

 method of preparing them for spinning is by passing them through the hatchel. Prepared in 

 this way, however, they are incapable of being drawn out in threads like carded cotton or wool, 

 but the interposition of the fingers is constantly required to supply the proper number of fibres, 

 which the spinner takes from a mass, held about his waist or upon a distaff. I here speak of 

 flux and hemp in their ordinary state, or having their fibres unbroken ; in which state very 

 little success has attended the numerous attempts to form them into threads by machines 

 worked without the direct aid of human fingers. 



u To spin flax or hemp by machines of that kind, it has hitherto been found necessary 

 to subject them to a process which shortens their fibres to the length of a few inches, bringing 

 them at the same time into a state in which they resemble a roving of cotton. They are then 

 spun by machines not differing in any essential degree from the water spinning-frame or 

 throstle. It has not been found practicable to apply this method to the spinning of hemp for 

 cordage or lines of any kind; the cost of the dressing and preparation, not to mention the loss 

 of strength produced by the breaking up of the fibres in forming the roving, being too great to 

 bring it into successful competition with hand-work. It is, however, applied, to a considerable 

 extent, for spinning flax, particularly for coarse cloths. 



"It will be understood, from the preceding statement, that in the spinning of flax or hemp 

 by machinery, as hitherto practised, one machine alone is used which is peculiar to that 

 manufacture, the machine by which their fibres are shortened and formed into a roving. This 

 machine consists of a cylinder about the periphery of which are placed numerous steel points. 

 Near this cylinder is a pair of strong rollers. The cylinder and the rollers are geared, and, 

 when in motion, the face of the rollers has six or eight times the velocity of the cylinder. 



* On a pencil drawing is the following : " Drawing made October, 1828, by D. Tread well, from which the first 

 machine for spinning rope-yarns was built. This memorandum made Nov. 5, 1829. D. T. n 







