The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-06-02
COTTON GINS AND LOOMS.

Editor Advertiser: On page nine of
the Advertiser of May 23-Sunday. I
found very interesting article en-
titled Strange Relic of Old Japan"
with rough sketches of the "press."
the beating string" the spinning
jenny" and the 'loom,'' constituting
as a group all the necessary ma
chinery for making woven-cotton
cloth.
The first illustration called g.
press" IS in reality not press at
all. On the contrary it is a cotton
GIN of the type known as the roller
GIN" This ''roller-gin'' is probably
the form Of gin first invented for me-
chanically separating the cotton-fber
from the downy-covered cotton-seed,
and it works on the same general
principle as our laundry woman's
wringer which, receiving the garments
on one side, passes them through, de-
livering the fabric into the appro-
pirate container on the one side, while
on the other.
SO in this machine the downy-
cred seeds are fed between the roll
ers, the fibers are caught by the
rollers, carried through and delivered
on the farther side in the form of lit
tie wads, while the hard seeds un-
able to pass between the rollers, as
soon as thir fibers are wrenched or
torn off, are dropped on the front side
of the machine. This roller-gin does
not by any means clean off all the
fiber from the seeds, but it does the
work more rapidly than can be done
by hand, and, consequently, whatever
of fiber is left clinging to the seed
is economically more than compen-
stated for by the saving of time
The beating string" is perhaps
properly named. 1t is used in break
ing up the little wads of cotton de-
livered by the ''cotton-gin,'' putting
the fibers into uniformly fluffy con-
dition. The fluffy fibers are then
gathered up by hand and made into
little hollow cylinders about five or
six inches long by rolling a small
quantity of them by hand around a
smooth stick about as large as an
| ordinary lead pencil. withdrawing the
stick when the roll is of sufficient
| diameter.
The spinning jenny is then brought
into use and from these cylinders the
| threads are spun in the manner so
| nicely described IN your article of last
Sunday.
The loom was fairly we'll illustrated
and pretty well described, but I was
| quite puzzled by the statement tina.
1.-The cloth is not woven at all, it is
merely battened in" There
is no weaving to hold the cross
| threads in place, but they seem to
hold by combining with the original
frame [of threads] as they are bat.
tened in" These two statements just
| quoted Jared me so that I thought
| / would investigate for myself and ]
have found that they are not only
! contrary to reason. but also utterly
| lacking in fact. A loom is defined
| as a machine by which weaving is
| effected.
How this old japanese loom could
| turn out yard of cloth without
| weaving it was more than I could I'M
| derstand and / find on investigating
and seeing the machine in operation
| that 1t is a loom indeed, "a machine
| by which weaving is effected and ]
| find furthermore that the cross
| threads are caught and would be
held whether they are "battened i'm
or not. They are "battened in how
ever, to make the cloth of an even or
uniform texture, but they are secured
in place by strictly weaving process.
'In it's simplest sense weaving con-
sists in passing one set of threads
transversely through another set; di-
vided into two series, working alter
nately up and down. so as to receive
the transverse threads in passing, and
interlock them, forming thereby a
united surface out of the threads"
This work of alternately raising and