304 ' MR. J. C. DYER ON 



applied to kindred objects. Thus the action of the tube 

 machine^ in pressing and condensing the roving hard upon 

 the bobbins, was seen to be an object of great importance 

 if it could be applied to the fly frame. With this view 

 my friend Mr. Henry Houldsworth made a series of experi- 

 mentSj by attaching a presser to one arm of the flyer, to 

 act against the bobbins in the fly frame as in the tube 

 frame. By an arrangement with him, this new application 

 of the presser was included in my second patent for " Im- 

 provements in Roving-frames.'^ This improvement so far 

 changed the working of the bobbin and fly frame, that the 

 scale soon after began to turn in its favour with the spinners. 

 To show the relation of these two roving-frames to the 

 work to be done by them, we must keep in view the dif- 

 ferent degrees of tenuity of the roving required for fine 

 and for coarse spinning. The rovings are in general 

 drawn on the mule-beam some ten or twelvefold, say 

 from one to ten or twelve yards in length. When they 

 are for spinning the Nos. 30, 60, and 120 twist (taking 

 the draft of one into ten) , the rovings for those numbers 

 must of course be reduced to the sizes of 3, 6, and 12 

 hanks to the pound weight. 



The hank of 840 yards equals 2520, 5040, 10,080 yards 

 to the pound weight. In practice it was found that rovings 

 of the tenuity exceeding six hanks were too weak to draw 

 off from the bobbins, unless they were slightly twisted, 

 and the twist could only be given to the fly frame. In 

 other respects the rovings from this frame were very 

 defective, compared with those from the tube frame. 

 The former being soft and loosely wound on, the bobbins 

 were liable to injury in carrying from the roving- to the 

 spinning-rooms. This made it necessary to use the old 

 form of spools, or barrels with disk ends to support the 

 rovings. But the bobbins on the tube frame were simple 

 barrels without end disks, as the rovings are compressed 



