and the aim in all the processes of their manufacture is to produce an open, soft cloth with high felting properties. Worsteds, on the other hand, are fulled only slightly. Their strength and wearing properties depend upon the way in which the fibers are laid in the yarn and not upon the fulling process after the cloth is woven. In finishing worsteds the yarns are clearly defined and not felted. The latter statement is true in general, but must not be interpreted too literally. It is strictly true of the coarse worsteds which are made from long straight wools, with no curly fiber, and with the weave of the cloth clearly outlined. Some of the best worsteds, however, are made of fine wools, with some curly fibers among them, and these not infrequently have high felting properties.

Most fancy woolens and many worsted suitings are more or less fulled to give them strength and body, but the shrinking and felting are comparatively slight. The napping of such cloths is not so severe an operation as in the woolen "faced" cloths. It is carried out in a different way and with a different object. Worsteds are, as a rule, only slightly raised, since their close, firm texture would not allow the rather drastic application of the teasel which some woolens undergo, and the napping of both woolens and worsteds of this type is carried out while the fabric is dry. Its aim is to brush up loose fibers, which are subsequently cut off short by the shearing machine, the net result of the two processes being to show up rather than to conceal the weave.

The chief stages in the manufacture of worsted are successively as follows:

It will be observed that these processes are the same as those used in the manufacture of woolens with the addition of backwashing, gilling, combing, and drawing, which are introduced between carding or preparing and spinning.

1. Scouring. The process of scouring wool intended to be used in worsted yarn is similar in principle and results to that employed on wool for use in the manufacture of woolen yarn.

2. Carding or preparing.—The worsted card differs in construction and in combination of parts from a woolen card, but the operation is similar in principle in the two types of machine. The object is to separate, as in woolen carding, the fibers of the wool and to rearrange them, and at the same time to remove burrs and other foreign matter and to deliver the material in one continuous ribbon or sliver of uniform thickness, weight, and fibrous density.

One large card, a combined breaker and finisher, is used. The sliver which comes from the worsted card is not so completely carded as that from the woolen card, but it is not necessary that it should be because of the additional treatment it is to undergo.

While most wools used in the manufacture of worsted yarns are carded, there are some long-stapled varieties in the manufacture of which carding gives place to preparing. Generally, long wools, 7 to 8 inches in length and upward, are prepared for the comb by the preparer; wools below these lengths are prepared for the comb by the carder.

The preparing machine breaks up the naturally formed clusters of material, lays the fibers parallel, and arranges them in the form of a continuous strand. To avoid breakage and to obtain the maximum degree of straightening of the fiber, the process of preparing is usually divided into five or six operations.

3. Backwashing.-After carding, the material is ready for those processes which pertain strictly to worsted yarn manufacture, namely, backwashing, combing, drawing, roving, and spinning on the cap frame or flyer frame. Backwashing is the first of these processes. The material, as it leaves the card, may be somewhat discolored by the oil applied to facilitate its passage through the machine, and it may contain some dirty matter. It is necessary before combing to remove such impurities and thoroughly cleanse the material. This is done in the backwashing machine, to which is attached a doublescrew gill balling head. The machine consists of a couple of cleansing bowls, each of which contains a pair of immersing rollers and a pair of squeezing rollers, a series of drying cylinders, and the gilling and balling apparatus. A washing or scouring soap, without any excess of alkali, is used in the first bowl, the standard temperature of the scour being 100° to 110° F. After using, it is run to waste, and the solution from the second is conveyed into the first bowl and renewed as required with the scouring ingredients employed. If the sliver should be tinged yellow, a "blueing" or "tinting" solution to whiten the wool is added in the second bowl, which is chiefly utilized for rinsing. From the last drying roller the backwashed material is conveyed to the screw-gill balling head and delivered as two balls of sliver.

4. Gilling. The object of the process is to straighten the fibers, draw out and level the carding, and prepare the material for the combing machine. In the treatment of long wools, it is this process which effects the correct arrangement of the fibers, without other preparatory mechanical operations, in a suitable condition for the comb.

A set of preparing boxes for ordinary combing wools comprises five or six machines similar in construction and also in principle of operation. The sheet or "lap" of fibers resulting from the first gilling is passed through the second box and again delivered in lap form. In the third box a change is made in the mode of delivery. The gilled material is passed through an oval plate and then between a pair of smooth pressure rollers to be delivered in the sliver form into · cans. Some six such cans are placed behind the fourth box, and the six slivers drawn out to approximately the thickness of one of the series. A like number is similarly redrafted and reduced in the fifth box and the process repeated in the next or sixth operation. This frequent combination and drawing out of the material is necessary to produce a level and uniform sliver of straightened fibers of suitable composition for the process of combing.

For short-staple wools, such as fine merinos and crossbreds, gilling is practiced both before and after combing. Attached to the backwasher is a gill box capable of delivering the slivers either in four balls or into four cans, and made with two sets of faller screws. Following this leveling treatment the balls of backwashed slivers are passed through a pair of gill boxes, known as preparers or as intermediates because they are used between backwashing and combing.

One such gill box, with one set of screws, is equivalent in output to two Noble combs, each of which, on fine wool, has a productive capacity of 375 to 420 pounds of combed top per day of 10 hours. If the preparers are mounted with two sets of screws and fallers they are capable of supplying material for four combs.

5. Combing.-In the combing, drawing, and spinning of worsted yarns there are two separate methods or systems-the English or Bradford system and the French system. The former is employed more commonly in the worsted mills of the United States and England; the latter is the one generally used in continental Europe. In recent years, however, the French system has been introduced into this country, and, although it is to be found in only a comparatively few mills, it is there employed on a large scale. The machinery used in the manufacture of worsted yarns by the French system is practically all foreign.

The purpose of combing is to take out all the short fibers or "noils" and to leave the long fibers all laid parallel and straight in a continuous sliver, perhaps three-quarters of an inch thick, known as "tops." The specialized, separate, top industry is the rule rather than the exception in England and on the Continent. In the United States, however, most worsted mills were established with their own combing departments and still retain them.

6. Drawing. The principle of the drawing operation is that of combining several slivers and drafting them to such a degree as to produce a thick, soft thread which, when twisted, will form a yarn capable of withstanding the tension and friction of the weaving process. Two or more slivers are successively united and drawn to a length equal to the sum of their combined lengths, that is to say, if six strands were put together and elongated into one, a yard of the combined sliver would be attenuated to the length of the six and reduced to a size corresponding to one of the six. This system of equalizing and leveling rectifies any unevenness and further adjusts and straightens the fibers. Six or nine successive machines are employed, all built on a similar principle. Each machine has two pairs of rollers, revolving at different speeds, one pair receiving the slivers and the other delivering them. Draft or attenuation is, in every machine, effected on this sytem. The "ratch" or draft is varied according to the average length of the fibers of the wool, a reduction being made as the material passes from one frame to another, the increase in length of the sliver in each box being in the same ratio as the circumferential speeds of the two pairs of rollers. The Bradford and French systems differ a good deal in the details of these processes. For example, in the Bradford system a twist is imparted to the rovings in the winding, while in the French system this is not done.

Roving may be defined as a combination of drawing and twisting, with an excess of drawing, while spinning is a combination of the same processes with an excess of twisting. It is the last operation through which the slubbing passes before spinning. In the roving box two of the thick slubbings from the preceding machine are combined and reduced in size but increased in length, the operation being the same, with the exception of the twist inserted, as in the drawing machines.

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7. Spinning.-Woolen yarns, with few exceptions, are produc on the mule, but for worsted yarns there may be used the cap frame, the flyer frame, the ring frame, or the worsted mule, the selection of the type of spinning machine to be used depending mainly on the quality of the wool and the type of yarn to be produced.

In its essentials, ordinary worsted spinning differs but little from the last of the drawing processes. In such spinning there is, however, no doubling and there is a great deal more twisting than at any previous stage. The oldest type of spinning frame, the "flyer" frame, closely resembles the roving machine. Frames are usually made double; that is, they have rows of spindles on each side. The rovings, wound on bobbins, are placed on pegs on the upper part of the frame. Each end passes, as it has so often passed before, between two pairs of drawing rollers, revolving at different speeds. Between the drawing rollers are two pairs of small "carrying" rollers, whose function is merely to conduct the roving to the front rollers. The surfaces of the carriers move rather faster than those of the back rollers. The roving is twisted into yarn between the "nip" of the front rollers and the arm of the flyer, to which it goes direct from the rollers, by the rapid revolution of the flyer; and the spun yarn is wound onto a bobbin running freely on the spindle. The bobbin is made to rise and fall automatically in order to secure accurate winding. Very great speed is impossible in flyer spinning; for, as the flyer is fixed to the spindle some distance from any point where the latter can be supported, high speeds lead to excessive vibration and so are undesirable. The two other types of frames regularly used in worsted spinning are free from this objection. These are the cap and the ring frames. So far as the drawing work is concerned, these frames are identical with that just described; it is the spinning and winding mechanism that differs.

The cap spindle, unlike the flyer spindle, is fixed-a mere peg of metal. The cap, from which the machine takes its name, is also fixed; this is a steel tube, closed at the top, where it receives the head of the spindle, over which it fits. The spindle, just above the point where it is fastened to the rail that carries it, passes through a "whorl," or small, solid horizontal wheel with a grooved edge on which a driving belt works; so that it is the whorl that rotates, not the spindle. To the whorl is attached a brass tube that fits the spindle closely; and the bobbin rests on the whorl. Thus, the bobbin is driven round, not dragged round; and twist is imparted to the yarn between the rollers and the point where it is being wound on the bobbin. A "lifter plate," causing the bobbin to rise and fall, insures accurate winding, just as in flyer spinning. In cap spinning, there is a perpetual rubbing of the yarn against the edge of the cap, around which it is traveling at high speed. Consequently this type of spindle is best adapted to very fine yarns of high-class wool, which can stand the friction and which are required to have a smooth surface. As there is comparatively little friction or vibration in the spindle mechanism itself, cap frames can be driven considerably faster than flyers.

In ring spinning, the spindle rotates and the bobbin with it, for the latter is attached to a plate on the former. The revolving spindle is supported in a long metal "sleeve" and can be driven rapidly with little vibration. On the ring runs the "traveler," a small steel hoop

with a gap that can be squeezed over the flange of the ring; it will then run freely round and round and can only be pulled off with difficulty. The thread passes through the traveler to the bobbin, the motion of which drags the traveler round. Twist is inserted in the roving between the front rollers and the traveler, just as in the flyer frame it is put in between the front rollers and the flyer arm. But whereas on the flyer frame the bobbin is dragged, in the ring frame the bobbin does the dragging. In ring spinning, the accurate winding of the yarn on the bobbin is due, not to any movement in the spindle, but to the rise and fall of the whole ring plate, with its rings and travelers.

The mule, when used for worsted yarn, has on the stationary frame two pairs of fixed rollers between which the sliver is drawn out. The front pair pay out the drawn sliver all the time that the carriage moves, while the spindles are imparting the necessary twist. Mulespun worsted yarns, though by no means unknown in this country, are not so common here as on the Continent; they are most common in the hosiery yarn trade. It is generally admitted that the combination of the French drawing with mule spinning produces a yarn whose softness and fullness can not easily be attained by any other method; for in mule spinning the friction and drag on the yarn, incidental to flyer, cap, and ring spinning, are very largely avoided.

8. Weaving. The operations through which warp yarns pass between the spinning machine and the loom are the same in principle in the manufacture of practically all classes of textile fabrics, and comprise warping, sizing, and drawing-in.

Weaving, whether considered from an artistic or a mechanical standpoint, is one of the most important operations of textile manufacture. Other operations are secondary, having for their object the preparation of the raw material for the loom, or the improvement in appearance, handle, and surface of the woven product. On the process of weaving depends, to a very considerable extent, the success of manufacture in general. The employment of good, sound, even yarn can not possibly result in satisfactory fabrics if the motions of the loom are in any way defective.

The power loom is constructed to form the shed in the warp according to the required pattern or design; to propel the shuttles in consecutive order across the piece; and to beat the picks of filling into close contact with each other so as to produce a woven fabric, and finally wind it on to the piece beam. The loom usually possesses other minor motions for facilitating quick weaving, such as the arrangements whereby it is brought to a stop without interference on the part of the weaver should the warp or filling yarn be broken, the filling run out, or the shuttle not reach its proper destination. The weaving of worsted fabrics is similar in all respects to the weaving of woolens. As a rule, the looms used in the worsted mills are somewhat lighter in weight and of less reed space than those used in the weaving of woolens. The standard reed space of a six-quarter worsted loom is 72 inches, whereas for a woolen loom it is generally 82 to 110 inches. Using nonautomatics, two looms to the weaver is the rule for staple worsteds, and not infrequently the practice for fancy worsteds, whereas one loom to the weaver is the rule for woolens. The automatic bobbin-changing looms are built to produce a wide variety of fabrics with the use of two, four, or six colors or sizes of