Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/417

twist was sold to the weavers, who made use of hand looms to convert it into cloth. In England also, though the power loom, the remarkable invention of a clergyman unskilled in mechanics, was in use, its employment was in establishments distinct from those in which the cotton was spun into yarn. The construction of this loom was unknown in the United States, and it was impossible to obtain any plan of it. In 1812 Francis C. Lowell of Boston, lately returned from England and Scotland, determined to introduce the weaving of the cloth in this country, and in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Patrick T. Jackson, set about the invention of a power loom. After numerous attempts, they succeeded in producing in the autumn of 1812 a satisfactory model; and procuring the services of a skilful mechanic, Paul Moody, afterward well known as the head of the machine shop at Lowell, they decided upon building a mill to work it. Finding it would be more profitable to combine the operation of spinning with the weaving, they built at Waltham, Mass., in 1813, a factory for about 1,700 spindles, and furnished it with looms also for weaving. This factory was probably the first in the world that combined all the processes necessary for converting the raw cotton into finished cloth. The first cotton mill in Lowell was erected in 1822.—The operations of preparing cotton for the loom are too numerous and complicated to admit of more than a very general description. As the bags or bales are opened at the mills, the first process is to mix thoroughly the cotton of the same staple and general qualities, that the result may be of perfectly uniform character. This is sometimes done in the following manner: The contents of a bale are spread uniformly over a space upon the floor prepared for it, and upon the layer thus made another bale is emptied and spread, and upon this another, and so on, the whole being continually trodden down by men and boys. The pile thus made is called a bing, and as the cotton is required for the mill it is raked down from the top to the bottom on one side of the pile, thus securing a mixture of the contents of all the bales. The mixing should be made with reference to the kind of yarn required, whether for warp or weft, coarse or fine, &c., and the sorting of the cotton for this purpose requires experience and good judgment. Some cottons, particularly those of long and short fibres, cannot be made to draw, rove, or spin well together. The cotton taken from the bing is too impure for spinning until it has been passed through several processes, by which the dirt is winnowed out and the matted lumps are opened and the fibres loosened and cleaned. Different methods are employed to effect this result, according to the quality of the fibre. The finest, which are intended for the most delicate yarns and laces, are beaten by hand with twigs upon a frame; the surface of the frame is a sort of network through which the dust and impurities fall. The cotton, thus beaten or batted, is called batting. Other qualities are passed through a hollow conical machine called a willow, or machines with other names that answer the same purpose, in which the cotton is pulled about and shaken by the action of spikes upon a revolving axis, the dust and impurities as they separate falling through a grating, and being blown through a shoot by a strong current of air created by a fan blower. The cotton at the same time is passed through another shoot to be subjected to the succeeding operations of further cleaning, or to be delivered to the carding machine. The further cleaning, called scutching, is similar in principle to the willowing, the operation being more thoroughly accomplished by beating with blunt knives upon an axis revolving with great rapidity. The cotton is regularly fed to the machine by being spread in equal quantities upon the feeding apron, which carries it on in a broad layer till it is taken up by a pair of rollers, and thus presented to the beating knives; in a second part of the machine the same operation is repeated, and as the cotton passes out it is received by the spreading or lapping machine, in which it is flattened into a filmy sheet of uniform thickness and then wound upon a roller. As one roller is filled it is taken away to the carding machine, and an empty one is set in its place. This process is conducted with such perfect regularity, that the weight of the cotton fed to the machine determines the fineness of the thread afterward produced. The carding process has already been referred to as perfected by Arkwright. It is one of the most ingenious of the operations of this manufacture. The improved machines consist of a large drum covered with cards of wire teeth revolving in a box, which is lined with cards of teeth that come nearly in contact with those upon the drum; or four small cylinders covered with cards are placed within the same box, and made to revolve in an opposite direction to the large cylinder and at a different velocity. Stationary cards are also fixed to a part of the upper lining of the box. The machine is fed by a pair of rollers, which unwind the sheet of cotton from the roller of the spreading machine, and pass it into the cards. These lay out the fibres in one direction, and leave behind upon the stationary cards lumps and imperfections that have escaped the other cleaning operations. As the fibres are carried over on the large cylinder, they are gathered and taken in a fine fleece by the teeth of another cylinder called a doffer, which revolves slowly in a contrary direction. When this has made half a revolution the cotton is stripped from it by a rapidly vibrating toothed knife or comb, that extends the whole length of the doffer. It removes the cotton in a fleecy ribbon, and this, called a card-end or sliver, is drawn through a small funnel which consolidates it, and then between rollers which compress and elongate it, and finally deliver it