286 



COTTON SPINNING. 



Cotton 

 Spinning. 



Jenny 

 spinning. 



I. Of Jenny Spinning. 



Batting. 



Carding. 



Feeding- 

 cloth. 



Roving. 



The jenny, in its manner of action, resembles the an- 

 cient spinning with the distaff and spindle, but is so con- 

 trived that one person works a number of spindles at 

 once. We have seen that it was the earliest improvement 

 on spinning after the one-thread wheel, and was the inven- 

 tion of Richard Hargreaves, weaver in Lancashire, in the 

 year 1767. 



The jenn}'' continued long in use for producing woof 

 or weft after the introduction of Arkwright's mode of 

 spinning, which last was employed in producing warps. 

 But as the jenny \s now almost entirely superseded by 

 the mule, we shall be very brief in our description of the 

 machinery and operations, which come under this branch 

 of spinning. 



: In another place, (see page 279> &c.), we have spo- 

 ken of the various modes of cleaning cotton, which 

 come under the elementary process denominated batting. 

 F 'or jenny spinning, it is next soaped, in order to make it 

 more easily stretched in the roving and spinning. The 

 soaping is performed by immersing the cotton in a solu- 

 tion of soap in water. It is next put into a screw press, 

 and afterwards dried in a stove. 



Carding. 



Carding is the second elementary process. The card is 

 a kind of brush made with wire, stuck through a sheet of 

 leather, the wires being inclined one way at a certain 

 angle. By this process the cotton is further opened, and 

 the knotty parts disentangled, so as to form the whole 

 into a uniform fleece. 



We already mentioned that hand cards first, and stock 

 cards afterwards, were employed before the invention of 

 the cylinder cards. See Card Manufacture. 



The carding machine, which has long been employed 

 in this branch of spinning, consists of two larger and 

 two smaller cylinders, and a number of rollers all cover- 

 ed with sheets or fillets of leather, containing the card 

 teeth, similar to those of common hand cards. The 

 larger cylinders move with considerable velocity; and 

 the smallest ones go slowest. 



At one end of the machine is what is called the feed- 

 ing-cloth, which, by means of rollers and pullies, receives 

 a constant uniform motion. The cotton is weighed in 

 c-ual portions, and spread on equal lengths marked on 

 the cloth, which, by its motion, conducts the cotton to 

 the first large cylinder, the teeth of which immediately lay 

 hold of it. It is again taken off and laid on again by the 

 rollers called -urchins. It proceeds to the first small cylin- 

 der, and so on, till it passes to the last small cylinder called 

 the doffer. The dqffer is cleared by means of a steel 

 comb, which receives an alternate motion from a crank. 

 This contrivance, as already mentioned, is one of the 

 most ingenious in cotton-spinning, and which we shall 

 afterwards more particularly describe. The little fleeces 

 taken off by the comb fall in between a smooth cylinder, 

 having several very small projections on its surface, and 

 a fluted arc, which serves to form the fleeces into little 

 rolls about the size of candles. These rolls fall in regu- 

 lar succession on a moving cloth similar to the feeding- 

 cloth, and they are in that state ready to be conveyed to 

 the next operation called the roving. 



Roving or Stubbing. 



The roving is performed on similar principles to the 

 spinning jenny, on a machine called a billy, containing 



generally about 36 spindles, which are driven by means 

 of bands from a cylinder, which receives its motion from 

 a vertical fly wheel driven by hand at one end of the 

 machine. 



This machine has a feeding-cloth on the side next the 

 carding engine. Children are employed to lift the rolls 

 or rowans from the carding engine, and unite them on 

 the feeding-cloth, so as to form as many rolls as there 

 are spindles in the machine. In order to stretch out these 

 rolls, after a certain number of revolutions of a roller, the 

 feeding-cloth stops, and the rolls are laid hold of by two 

 horizontal pieces of wood the breadth of the machine, 

 (which we may call the clasps,) which, when pressed to- 

 gether, chisp the rolls in imitation of the finger and 

 thumb on the old one-spindle machine ; from these pieces 

 of wood the rolls pass to the spindles, which are dis- 

 posed on a moveable carriage, which is made to recede, 

 and by that means extends the rolls, reducing them to 

 the proper size of the roving. This is the third elemen- Stretching 

 tary operation which we have denominated stretching, 

 and the first time that it occurs. It is carefully to be 

 distinguished from the fifth, viz. drawing, which is per- 

 formed by means of rollers, but which does not occur in 

 jenny spinning. This extended roving receiving a small 

 degree of twine, is built on the spindles in the form of a 

 cone by means of levers and wires, in doing which the 

 carriage is returned to its former situation. These cones 

 are called cops, and when made as large as the dis- 

 tances of the spindles admit, are taken off" the spindles, 

 and are ready to be spun on the jenny. The twist, which Twis ing. 

 the roving here receives, is the first occurrence of the 

 sixth elementary process, which is obviously essential to 

 every mode of spinning. 



The Jenny. 



The jemiy is a machine, similar in its operation to the The jenny, 

 roving billy, but diners from it in construction in this re- 

 spect, that the clasp is attached to the carriage, while the 

 spindles are disposed in the rails of the frame which re- 

 main at rest. The drawing out of the clasp stretches the 

 roves so as to reduce them into the size proper for the 

 yarn ; at the same time the spindles twine it. During 

 the return of the carriage, the yarn is built on the spindles 

 by levers and wires, and formed like the rovings into cops. 

 It is wrought with the hand by one grown up person, 

 assisted by a boy or girl, called a piecer, in order to mend 

 such threads as break. The yarn, when taken off the 

 spindles, is sometimes reeled, but more frequently given 

 to the weaver in cops, who has it wound on the bobbins 

 or pirns preparatory to being placed in the shuttle. 



Common jenny yarn is now but little used, excepting 

 for the woof or weft of calicoes. For this purpose, how- 

 ever, it is more esteemed than what is spun on mules, as 

 it gives the cloth a more full and rich appearance. 



II. Of Water Spinning. 



The second method of spinning is denominated water- Of Water 

 spitming. It received this name from being the first s P mmn S- 

 spinning done by a water wheel, and was the invention 

 of Sir R. Arkwright. 



Carding. 



After the cotton is picked, the usual process is -to card Carding, 

 it first by a carding machine, called a breaker, and a se- 

 cond time on another, called a finisher. 



The breaker consists of a larger and smaller cylinder. 





