THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Nov. I, 1864. 



150 WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES IN AUSTRALIA. 





No. of Factories. 



Yards made. 



Hartley 



.1 



. 7,893 



Penrith 



. 2 



. 7,500 



Sydney 



. 1 



. 95,000 



Parraniatta . 



. 1 



. 35,000 



Total. ... 5 ... 145,393 



This improvement is, no doubt, owing, in a great degree, to the 

 introduction of the latest and most improved machinery and appliances 

 from the mother-country. At the Messrs. Byrnes's establishment, at 

 Parraniatta, and at the Sydney factory of Messrs. Campbell and Co., 

 may be seen in operation some of the most beautiful and complicated 

 machinery in the Southern hemisphere. In 1852, notwithstanding the 

 quantity of tweed-cloth manufactured, there was not a single power- 

 loom in the colony, all being made by hand. At the present time, 

 however, the Parramatta factory alone contains about twenty power- 

 looms, as well as other machinery, which greatly enhances its productive 

 capacity. 



The manufacture of cloth is so complicated a process that it would 

 be useless to attempt to describe all its details here, but without a short 

 description of the different processes through which the wool passes, 

 from the time it ceases to be a sheep's coat until it becomes the clothing 

 of man, our notice of this branch of colonial manufactures woidd be 

 incomplete. The wool when it comes into the hands of the manufac- 

 turer is scoured or washed in hot water, in large vats, until it becomes 

 almost the colour of white paper, and all grass-seeds and other substances 

 which had become mixed with it are carefully removed. It is then taken 

 to the dye-house and placed in large boilers, filled with dye, for several 

 hours, according to the colour intended to be produced. When suffi- 

 ciently dyed it is taken to the drying ground, and from thence, when 

 dry, it is brought to the mill and placed in a machine called a " devil." 

 This devil consists of a large number of revolving cylinders, armed with 

 numberless sharp spikes or teeth. The wool is placed in the machine 

 at one end and comes out at the other, looking like tiny banks of fleecy 

 clouds. It is next passed through a machine called a " scribbler," 

 consisting of numbers of revolving cylinders covered with steel wire, set 

 bike the hairs of a brush. From this it comes forth more fleecy, cloud- 

 like, and intangible in appearance than ever. It is then weighed 

 (according to the thickness and quality of the cloth intended to be made) 

 and passed through the carding machine. These carders are exceedingly 

 complicated and beautiful engines, consisting of five large cylinders, 

 and numerous smaller ones, having their surfaces covered with fine 

 steel wires, so closely set as to present almost a solid surface to the 

 eye. From the carder the wool falls out on a moving table in small 

 rolls, about four feet in length and of the thickness of a child's little 

 finger. It now, for the first time, presents the appearance of yarn ; its 



