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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



THE DELIVERY END OF A CARDING-MACHINE 



Here we see the "lap" spread out in gossamer-like thinness over the card cloth. The 

 filmy sheet is then gathered into the "sliver" ; the sliver is the white streamer clearly pictured 

 on the extreme left. The second stage in the conversion of raw cotton into plain yarn now 

 begins. 



turns a minute. Placed end to end, these 

 dancing dervishes of the textile industry 

 would reach from Montreal, Canada, to 

 Memphis, Tenn. 



EIGHT MILES OF COTTON CLOTH MADE 

 EVERY MINUTE 



Then there are the looms, a quarter of 

 a million of them. Put these cloth-mak- 

 ing machines together, end to end, with 

 no aisles between them, and the weaving 

 shed required to house them would begin 

 at Boston, Mass., and end at Wilmington, 

 Del. Every third spindle and loom in the 

 United States is humming away in the 

 cities and towns of the Bay State. 



Of the textiles, cotton is first, some 

 two billion yards of woven goods leaving 



the cotton looms every year. That means 

 cloth flowing from machines at the rate 

 of nearly eight miles a minute ! It is suffi- 

 cient piece goods to make a woven belt 

 long enough to hitch the moon to the 

 earth and more than six feet wide ! Of 

 sheetings, shirtings, and muslins Massa- 

 chusetts produces about thirteen yards 

 for every person in the United States ; of 

 fancy woven material, nearly four yards ; 

 of napped fabrics, more than one yard ; 

 of velvets, corduroys, etc., nearly a yard. 



THE STORY OF A YARD OF CALICO 



A piece of simple calico seems a mere 

 trifle ; but the story of its manufacture is 

 an epic of genius. Followed from the 

 raw cotton in the bale to the bolt of cloth 



