REPORT ON WAT’S PROCESS. 207 
any remarkable difference from the system pursued in the hot- 
water steeping establishments. The straw is secured between 
rods, and suspended in a drying chamber, heated by the waste 
steam of the engine. The arrangements for this purpose at 
the Bedford Street works of Messrs. Leadbetter consist of 
rooms with floors formed of spars. Below this flooring passes 
a pipe conveying steam, by which the air admitted by openings 
at the bottom of the chambers is heated, and made to ascend 
through the Flax. The circulation of the air is ingeniously 
effected by a series of revolving beaters kept in action below 
the steam-pipe.” 
The following extract from the Report of a Committee of the Royal Flax 
seeded gives the results of an experiment made at Messrs. Leadbetter’s 
works : 
In this experimental trial, a quantity of Flax straw, of ordinary quality, 
was taken from the bulk of the stock at the works, weighing 133 cwt. with 
the seed on. After the removal of the seed, which, on being cleaned 
thoroughly from the chaff, measured 32 imperial bushels, the straw was 
reduced in weight to l0cwt. lqr.2lb. It was then placed in the vat, 
where it was subjected to the steaming process for about eleven hours. 
After steeping, wet-rolling, and drying, it weighed 7 cwt. Oqr. 111b.; and 
on being scutched, the yield was 187 Ib. of Flax ; and of scutching tow, 
12 1b. 64 oz. fine, 35 lb. 3 0z. voarse. The yield of fibre, in the state of good 
Flax, was, therefore, at the rate of 133 Ib. from the cwt. of straw with seed 
on; 18lb. from the ecwt. of straw without seed; 2641b. from the ewt. of 
steeped and dried straw. 
The time occupied in actual labour, in the processes from the seeding of 
the Flax to the commencement of the scutching, was 13} hours, to which, if 
eleven hours be added for the time the Flax was in the vat, twenty-four 
hours would be the time required up to this point. The scutching, by four 
stands, occupied six hours sixteen minutes. But, in this statement, the time 
required for drying is not included, as owing to some derangement in the 
apparatus, no certain estimate could be made of the actual time required in 
that process. It would appear, however, that about thirty-six hours would 
include the time necessary, in a well-organized establishment, to convert 
Flax-straw into fibre, for the spinner. 
The cost of all these operations, in this experiment, leaving out the 
drying, for the reasons noted, appeared to be under £10 per ton of clean 
fibre, for labour, exclusive of general expenses. 
A portion of the fibre was sent to two spinning mills to be hackled, and 
to have a value put upon it. The valuation of the samples varied from £56 
to £70 per ton, according to the quality of the stricks of fibre sent, and the 
yield on the hackle was considered quite satisfactory. . 
Appended to this report is a note of the time occupied in the different 
processes during the experiment, and of the number of persons employed in 
each, ; 
It is to be hoped that so promising a plan may, on more extended expe- 
rience, be found fully to warrant the high anticipation formed from what is 
already known concerning it. (Signed on behalf of the Committee,) 
Ricnarp Niven, Chairman. 
Belfast, 3d Nov., 1852. 
