The Express.
London, England, 1851-06-14 00:00:00

COTTON MACHINERY.

The cotton machinery forms one of the most im-
portant and interesting features, not only in the de-
partment of machinery in motion, but, perhaps, in
the whole Exhibition; important, as the chief
manufacture which supports the power of England,
and interesting from its history presenting a most
strange series of struggles, vicissitudes, and success-
ful combinations of mechanical genius. One regrets
in tracing this history to find those who gave birth
to the first ideas of improvement, those who have
i most real claim to originality of invention, deserted
and ruined in consequence ; whilst others taking up
the same ideas and bringing them to perfection have
reaped fortunes.
Lp to the year 1760, the machines used in thc cot-
ton manufacture in England were as simple (in prin-
ciple of action, though not of construction), as those
used in India.

In 1738, John Kay contrived the fly shuttle, which
simply consisted in the weaver chucking the shuttle
backward and forward through the warp by means
of strings in each hand. This was a groat improve.
ment, because one man could then wean, cloth of
such width that previously it required two persons to
perform the operation. It was first used in the
woollen manufacture, and was not generally used by ,
cotton weavers till 1760.

The impossibility of producing a greater quantity
and better quality of yarn formed a great impediment
to the further progress of the manufacture. One pair of
hands being able only to spin one thread, rendered the
operation of spinning slow and expensive. Necessity
being the mother of Invention, a machine was accord-
ingly invented, by which from twenty to a thousand
threads could be spun at once by a single pair of
hands.

John Wyatt, it seems, was the inventor of this
wonderful machine, generally known as the mode of
" spinning by rollers." The first process in the
manufacture of cotton before it is spun is to clean it,
and then pass it through the carding machine ;
carding consists in combing the cotton, that is, dis-
entangling and straightening the fibres. When
the cotton leaves the carding machine, it is in
loose rolls called slivers. The operation of spin-
ning consists in drawing out the cotton, that
is, reducing the sliver and then twisting it into
a thread. In the machine which Wyatt invented
the sliver passed between two rollers, which rcvol‘ el at
a certain speed, the sliver again passing between two
other rollers revolving at four or five times the speed
of the first rollers. By this means the sliver was drawn
out in proportion to the difference of speed between
the two sets of rollers, and after being thus reduced,
the cotton was twisted and wound on a bobbin. A
patent was taken out for this machine in the year
1738. The invention is generally attributed to Sir
R. Arkwright. In fact, there are a great many per-
sons who lay claim more or less to being the inventors
of spinning by machinery. It is certain that Ark-
wright got the principle of spinning by rollers from
Wyatt; yet it is owing to Arkwright's shrewd per-
ception, energy, and perseverance that spinning by
rollers was perfected, and was found practicable and
profitable. Arkwright took out a patent for his
spinning machine in 1769.
In the year 1770 Hargreaves took out a patent for
the spinning jenny ; it is said that Hargreaves got
the idea from seing a one-thread machine overturned
upon the floor, when both wheel and spindle con-
tinued to revolve. This threw the spindle from a
horizontal into an upright position. It then struck
whim that a number of thready might be spun at once,
by having a number of spindles placed side by side
in an upright position. The spinning jenny, there-
fore, is a machine by which the roving, which is a
loosely twisted thread about the thickness of th..
wick of a candle, is drawn out and spun into a tine
thread, or, as it is technically
.termed, into yarn.
Just in the same way as it is found necessary now-
adays to improve the permanent way of railways,
on account of the rapid advance made in locomotion,
so likewise from the advance then made in spinning,
was it found necessary to improve the mode of
cardinTheg.
primitive mode of carding consisted in the
workman holding two fiat cards, one in each hand,
the cotton was laid on one card, and was combed by
the other into a fleecy roll. The great improvement
in carding was the introduction of cylindrical cards ,
which only. required rotatory motion. This im- •
provement 11 assigned to Lewis Paul, for which
he took out a patent in 1748. Under the ,
cylinder was fixed a concave card; on the cy-
linder being worked round, the cotton was combed
between the two. Although this was a greatt im-
provement upon the old plan, yet the wool had o be
put on the cylinder by the hand, and the machine
had to be stopped, to strip off the carding, which was
done by a comb. Carding seems to have attained a
state of perfection in 1773, in which year Arkwright
took out a patent for a series of machines, namely, card-
ing, drawing and roving machines. Most of the im-
provements
in the carding machine are to be ascribed'
to Arkwright. The machine fed itself, the crank and
comb was also a great improvement, stripping the
carding off in a continuous fleece, which was con-
tracted into a sliver, and regularly coiled up in a

After the cotton has been carded it has to undergo
the process of drawing ; this draws the fibres of the
cotton out and equalises the thickness of the carding.
It is done by means of rollers already mentioned.
The cottonis then brought to the roving frame, which
twists the sliver into a thick loose thread, it is, in
fact, the first process of spinning.
In 1776 Samuel Crompton invented the mule.
This machine is a combination of Arkwright's.water
frame and Hargreave's jenny, its dimmgmehini
foam being that the spindles recede boa the