COTTON-SPINNING MACHINERY. 309 



described in a former paper, of which this is a second 

 part. 



It is about sixty years since Mr. John Kennedy adopted 

 the following method of putting twist into rovings, 

 namely: — He placed a range of pulleys along the front of 

 the drawing-frames^ so as to revolve horizontally on fixed 

 centre pins close to the floor. The top sides of the pulleys 

 were dished^ or turned hollow to receive the bottom ends 

 of cans of rovings^ making them revolve with the pulleys. 

 These were driven by an endless cord passing round them 

 and thence up to the common driving-shaft. Thus^ as the 

 rovings were delivered from the drawing-frames into the 

 cans, they were twisted in proportion to the speed of the 

 pulleys and that of the deli vering-r oilers. But the 

 cumbrous nature of this apparatus was found to limit 

 the rotation of the cans to so low a speed, compared with 

 that of the drawing-rollers, that the requisite amount of 

 twist could not be given to the rovings without great loss 

 of time, by retarding the drawing-process; so that this 

 defect (of twisting by the cans) led to the application of 

 the throstle-spindle and flyers, as before mentioned. 



The flyer-spindles, in the first place, were adapted for 

 very large bobbins, in what was called the "slubber- 

 frame,''^ used in the first operation upon the rovings ; and 

 the next, or finishing-frame, was the bobbin and fly frame, 

 the leading features and operations of which have been 

 already explained, as also the successive changes effected 

 for improving them. It will thus be seen that the vicissi- 

 tudes of these roving-frames afford striking proofs of the 

 gradations through which most of our great mechanical 

 inventions have had to pass ere they could be made to 

 realize the aspirations of their original inventors. Look- 

 ing to the high degree of perfection now displayed, and 

 the mighty powers daily exerted by the several classes of 

 machines employed in the cotton-mills, it seems of real 



