MANUFACTURE OF COTTON. 
degree of fineness, and then laid by with 
others of the same sort: the reel used is a 
small wheel reel, which denotes the com- 
pletion of the hank, or given number of 
yards, by a spring that slaps against its 
frame at that instant : its machinery is the 
simplest used, and not different materially 
from the wheel reels common in other ma- 
nufactures. 
The cotton yarn spun on jennys is almost 
solely used for weft, which, from its supe- 
rior softness, it is peculiarly fitted for,which 
softness is indispensably requisite for some 
fabrics. As yet no way has been found of 
forming yarn by mill spinning of the same 
quality in this respect, and therefore the 
mill-yarn is almost entirely appropriated 
for warp. This material difference origi- 
nates in the carding, which in that for the 
jennys lays the fibre of the cotton across 
the roll, while the carding engine for the 
mill-spinning lays tlie fibre longitudinally in 
the direction in which it is afterwards spun, 
as will be more plain from the following 
description of this operation. 
Of Mill Spinning. The cotton for milt 
spinning is cleared and beaten in a similar 
manner to that for jenny spinning, but is 
not washed or stoved; after it is judged to 
be sufficiently clean, it is brought to the 
carding engine. 
Mill Carding Engine. The principle on 
which this engine is constructed, are the 
same as those on which the carding engine 
for jenny spinning is formed : the gregt 
point in which they differ is, in the manner 
in which the carded cotton is taken from 
them, which, in the mill engine, is so as to 
form an entire flake, or continued sheet, of 
the breadth of the last cylinder ; the cards 
on this cylinder are generally formed of 
long narrow stripes,_ about an inch and a 
half broad, and are pat on round it spirally, 
by which means there are no joinings in the 
longitudinal direction of the cylinder of any 
considerable length. The carded cotton is 
struck off this cylinder in the same way as 
from the other engine ; but instead of be- 
ing passed under the roller with longitudi- 
nal projections, to form it into rolls, it is 
drawn forward through a conical guide of 
tin, by two narrow wooden rollers, about 
sijt inches in diameter, that deliver it into 
deep and narrow tin vessels, in the form of 
a long ribband, about two inches in breadth. 
The mill engine, insteacf of the small card- 
ing rollers above the main cylinder, used in 
the jenny carding engine, has commonly 
narrow flat spars of deal with cards attached 
to them, fixed at a proper distance from 
the principle cylinder. . Toothed wheels 
and pinions are more used in the mill card- 
ing engine than bands ; but that this is any 
improvement is doubtful, as in other parts 
of the machinery of mills, bands have been 
substituted for wheel work to advantage, 
and probably will be more so than they are 
now, as they work without causing that 
shaking motion which toothed wheels occa- 
sion in general, and which is both injurious 
to the evenness of the yarn, and the dura- 
tion of tlie machinery. For toothed wheels, 
when in quick motion, act by a succession 
of percussions on each other, unless con- 
structed with an accuracy as to the form of 
the teeth, that is very diflficult to give to 
very small wheels, or unless the teeth are 
so numerous that several may come in con- 
tact at once, which in small wheels would 
cause them to be of too reduced a size, and 
too weak for mill work. 
From the carding engine the long stripes 
of carded cotton are brought to engines 
consisting merely of two pair of small rol- 
lers, one pair of which moves faster than 
the other, and each pair of which are caused 
to press against each other with some force, 
either by weights or springs. Here two, 
three, or more of the stripes of carded cot- 
ton are drawn out together into another 
stripe, smaller than the first stripes, and 
this operation is repeated till the stripes 
attain that evenness which is so essential to 
the formation of good twist. 
Of Mill Slubbiiig. The prepared stripes 
of carded cotton are then brought to the 
slabbing engine, where they are formed 
into a thread of very loose texture and little 
twist. 
The slabbing engine consists of two pair 
of drawing rollers between which the pre- 
pared stripes of carded cotton are drawn 
out to the required fineness, they then pass 
downwards into tin cylinders, which revolve 
witli a velocity proportionate to the twist 
to be given ; at the top of each cylinder two 
very small rollers are placed, which are 
made to turn round by bands passing down 
the sides of the tin cylinder, over small 
pullies, to a fixed wheel at bottom ; these 
small rollers draw down the narrow stripes 
of cotton into the cylinders, and the centri- 
fugal motion distributes them equally round 
the sides of each cylinder in a long hollow 
roll, which is taken out at a door at the side 
of the cylinder, that is fastened with a hook 
and loop. 
The stubbing is then rolled on bobbins, 
