Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-10-03
The Cincinnati Exposition. :

According @ writer in Ssri5aer's
Monthly, it taxes seven million miles of
thread each year.tOlhold the peOpie of the
United States in their elothes. Twelve.
thousand sp6ols, each coniaiaing IS much
thread as one shown by the Williamautic
Company, would be sufficient to do this.
That institution claims to be the only one
which manufactures thread wholly and en-
tirely an this country, Of American pro-
ducts. Their display Includes specimens
of cotton in each process Of manufacture
from the time it is picked through the in
termediate steps Of cleaning, combing and
until It is finally finished into
six cord thread. The process Of manufact-
ure Is intensely interesting. The machinery
by which it is done is the most delicate
and intricate made.
Articles on Brussels tell how the lace of
that city is made in damp, dark cellars of
a certain temperature. so that the threads
may not break. The same thing is done in
our Exposition. a close glass case is built
over the spinning machine, and it. like a
fern. .ihsan awardian case, is issheltered from.
chilly drafts and hot air. A steam nine
gives the requisite moisture to the air.
One pound of cotton'there is spun into one
hundred thousand eight hundred yards of
thread. Anordinary bed comfort CONTAINS
three and one-half pounds Of cotton. At
that rate the cotton We sleep under each
night would make thread enough to reach
from Cincinnati to Toledo and have exactly
one mile to spare. The spindle by which
tits twisted makes SIX thousand five hun
dred revolutions per minute, or one hundred
and twenty-five in a second.
Another machine which they show is for
putting the tickets On the spooIs. A sheet
ofpaper is put in at oneend and the spools
at another. They come out. at the rate of
eighty7iiye gminute. The paste is made
Of flour andawater. a d.
a machine for making braid also attracts
considerable attention. Fffty-two bobblns
go round in a circle, half in one direction,
half in another, skipping by each other
ike children round a May-pole. Should a
single thread break the machine stops in a
second. The ingenuity displayed by the
inventor is not much greater than the skill
required by the manufactured. One Of the
chief mechanics from the MILL, a Young
Seotehman, named James Harris. is in
charge Of the display. Like all of the
Scotch he is proud of his nationality and
has terrible head for figures. He tells
how the mills use. up three thousand cords
Of birch wood each year making spools,
and how the company recently purchased a
twenty thousand acre tract of birch. forest
up in Maine, which is to be converted into
spools; how they manufacture over twelve
hundred kinds Of thread, and over four,
million miles year, or thirteen and half
miles each day, for. each employee of the.
company. Several of the thread companies
have thread winders in Operation. The
revolutions are so rapid that the friction of
passing over the guards make the spools so
hot, when coarse thread is wound, that.
they have to!be allowed to cool before hand
ling. Large numbers of spools are put up
in neat little boxes and given to the ladies
as samples Of the quality and sovenirs of
the Exposition. Up stairs, in the tobacco
one of the exhibitors Is equally
generous to the male part of the visitors.
He presents each one with tin tobacco
box filed with fine-eat. I saw one party
of five of whom only one used the weed 90
by the stand three separate times, each.
time getting a box apiece, and presenting
to the one Of the number who used it. He
had enough to last him month and a
stock Of boxes s1ficient to set up a small
sized tin shop. -. '''','.
The tobacco men really make a fine dis