Makers of Many Things

ng for their size. Look at one under a magnifying glass, in a brilliant light, and you will see that the little fibers of which it is made shine almost like glass. Examine it more

the gin. There is dust, and plenty of it, that the coarse burlap has not kept out. The first thing to do is to loosen the cotton and make it clean. Great armfuls are thrown into a machine called a "bale-breaker." Rollers with spikes, blunt so as not to injure the fiber, catch it up and tear the lumps to pieces, and "beaters" toss it into a light, foamy mass. Something else happens to the cotton while it is in the machine, for a current of air is passing through it all the while, and this blows ou

they must be made to lie parallel. This is brought about in part by carding. When people used to spin and weave in their own houses, they used "hand cards." These were somewhat like brushes for the hair, but instead of bristles they had wires shaped much as if wire hairpins had been bent twice and put through leather in such a way as to form hooks on one side of it. This leather was then nailed to a wooden back and a handle added. The carder took one card in each hand, and with the hooks pointing opposite ways brushed the cotton between them, thus making the fibers lie parallel. This is just what is done in a mill, only by machinery, of course. Instead of the little hand cards, there are great cylinders covered with what is called "card clothing"; that is, canvas bristling with the bent wire

COTTO

machine, and the "roving" bein

nd at last when the final sliver comes out, although it looks almost the same as when it came from the carding-machine, its fibers are parallel. It is much more uniform, but it is very fragile, and still has to be handled with great care. It is not nearly strong enough to be twisted into thread; and before this can be done, it must pass through three other machines. The first, or "slubber," gives it a very slight twist, just enough to suggest what is coming later, and of course in doing this makes it smaller. The cot

the "ring-spinner" does. Imagine a bobbin full of roving standing on a frame. Down below it are some rolls between which the thread from the bobbin passes to a second bobbin which is fast on a spindle. Around this spindle is the "spinning-ring," a ring which is made to whirl around by an endless belt. This whirling twists the thread, and another part of the machine winds it

th have a hundred or even more to the inch. In order to make cloth, the weaver must manage in some way to lower every other one of these little threads and run his shuttle over them, as the children do the strips of paper in their paper weaving. Then he must lower the other set and run the shuttle over them. "Drawing in" makes this possible. After the threads leave the beam, they are drawn through the "harnesses." These are hanging frames, one in front of the other, filled with stiff, perpendicular threads or wires drawn tight, and with an eye in each thread. Through these eyes the threads of the warp are drawn, the odd ones through one, and the even through the other. Then, keeping the threads in the same order, they pass through the

e figures are woven by bringing the filling thread not "over one and under one," but often over two or three and under one. In drilling or any other twilled goods, several harnesses have to be used because the warp thread is not lowered directly in line with the one preceding, but diagonally. Such work as this used to require a vast amount of skill and patience; but the famous Jacquard machine will do it with ease, and will do more complicated weaving than any one ever dreamed of before its invention, for it will weave not only regular figures extending across the cloth, but can be

falls. It drops between two rollers and stops them. Then the workman knows that something is wrong, and a glance will show where attention is needed. Success in a cotton mill demands constant attention to details. A mill manager who has been very successful has given to those of less experience some wise directions about running a mill. For one thing, he reminds them that building is expensive and that floor space counts. If by rearranging looms space can be made for more spindles, it is well worth while to rearrange. He tells th

a cottage or with a big power loom in a great factory, there are always three movements. One separates the wa