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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



© American Woolen Mills 



A GROUP OF LOOMS IN A MASSACHUSETTS MILL 



These are the machines that receive the loom beams shown in the preceding picture and 

 convert the yarn into cloth, weaving the warp and the woof together. In the simplest woven 

 goods the shuttles containing the woof ply back and forth across the loom, passing under 

 each alternate warp thread and over the others. In the fancy weaves the warp may go 

 through half a dozen or more harnesses, instead of the two used in simple weaves. 



the spinning frame and put on the 

 "spooler." Here the yarn is wound upon 

 large spools that hold about a mile of 

 thread. For tying the ends together, the 

 girl in charge of the spooler has a novel 

 knot-maker that fits in the palm of her 

 left hand. She takes the two ends, places 

 them across a little hook, shuts her hand 

 and opens it again, when, presto ! the 

 knot is neatly tied and the ends cut off ! 



After the warp is wound on the spools, 

 three or four hundred of the latter are 



set in a frame known as the "warper 

 creel." These threads are all tightly 

 wound, side by side, on a big reel, known 

 as a "warper beam." 



To make an average piece of goods 

 forty inches wide requires about two to 

 three thousand warp threads ; if 2,000, 

 five warper beams, each containing 400 

 threads, are put into a machine known 

 as the "slasher." Their yarn is un- 

 wound and passed through a box of hot 

 starch and then around two copper cylin- 



