388 Scientific Aspect of the International Exhibition. [July, 



termed "filatures ;" and the machinery consists of ordinary 

 reels driven sometimes by a falling weight, or machinery of 

 a very crude order. Here, of course, steam is employed. 

 A table with a brass top contains shallow tinned-copper 

 boilers, about a foot in diameter, and nine inches in depth. 

 One of these boilers is heated by steam, and on the surface 

 of the water there float several score of cocoons. A whisk 

 of peculiar shape is immersed in the water by the operator, 

 and rapidly rotated ; when withdrawn from the water there 

 are attached to the whisk several of the ends of the cocoons, 

 and these fibres are passed to the reel. A most important 

 part of the process consists in maintaining a constant 

 supply of fibre to this compound thread from the unattached 

 cocoons. The compound fibre passes over a circular glass 

 hook to a horizontal bobbin, upon which it is wound, motion 

 being imparted to the bobbin by a small wooden roller on 

 the bobbin-spindle. This "winding" machine, as well 

 as the "cleaning," "doubling," and "spinning" machines, 

 are exhibited by Messrs. Rushton, Sons, and Co., of 

 Macclesfield. The "cleaning" machine next takes up the 

 silk, and transfers it to another bobbin. During its passage, 

 the silk passes between two fixed parallel plates close 

 together. By this means any irregularity or knot in the 

 fibre is detected. In the doubling machine the fibres from 

 two or three bobbins are wound side by side, without 

 twisting, on to one bobbin. A very neat contrivance is 

 employed to detect a break in any one of the fibres, and so 

 to prevent inequality in the thickness of the silk. The 

 breaking it would be tiresome to detect by the eye, because 

 the filaments are so fine as to be difficultly visible. The 

 filament is passed through an eye in the end of a wire, and 

 supports this wire. Should the filament break, the wire 

 falls, and liberates a friction cam, which, pressing against 

 the bobbin, stops it. On the spinning machine the com- 

 pounded fibre from the doubling machine is twisted, and 

 this spinning is completed by a fifth machine, whence the 

 silk proceeding is commercially known as "tram" and 

 " organzine," according to the mode of its spinning. 

 " Tram " is the term applied to the fibres with a minimum 

 of twist, and " organzine " to those with a maximum twist. 

 The twists are about twenty to the inch of thread. The 

 silk is now handed over to the dyer, who, in turn, when his 

 processes are complete, forwards it to the weaver. But 

 before the dyer takes the silk in hand, a piece of mechanism 

 known as the " snail cam " is employed to arrange the silk 

 in hanks. A complete set of the interesting apparatus used 



