AN IMPROVED MANUFACTURE OF CERTAIN YARNS OF LINEN, WOOL, SILK, COTTON, AND FIBROUS SUBSTANCES
Year: 1851

page_text: TO AL
ROBERTS, of Selkirk, Manufacturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Tenth day of March,
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, in the fourteenth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
George Roberts, my exors, adñors, and assigns, Her especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said George Roberts, my exors,
admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said George Roberts, my exors,
adñiors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and at all times during the term of years therein expressed, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend my Invention of "AN IMPROVED
MANUFACTURE OF CERTAIN YARNS OF LINEN, WOOL, SILK, COTTON, AND
FIBROUS SUBSTANCES," within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed; in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, that I, the said.
George Roberts, shall cause a particular description of the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, to be inrolled in Her said Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after the
date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference
being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
George Roberts, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained in and by this present Instrument in writing, that is to say:-
The particular sorts or descriptions of yarns to which my said Invention has
reference, are those ordinarily known as mottled, marled, clouded, or spotted
yarns, of whatever material they may be composed, whether of linen, wool, silk,
cotton, or any other fibrous substance; and my said Invention consists in
manufacturing such yarns from rowans or cordings, which are produced by
combining slivers of different colors or mixtures of colors, and so that each
rowan or carding shall contain a portion of each sliver.
And in order the better to explain my said Invention, I will now describe
the manner in which the manufacture of the said rowans or cardings is to be
performed, as also the processes previous and subsequent to their formation.
In the first place, I choose portions of the wool or material intended to
be used, which, having (when necessary) been cleaned and dyed of different
colors, according to the intended pattern of the yarn to be produced, ] take
such several portions successively, and submit each portion or color separately
to the action of a teaser, and if wool be used I then oil it; I then place each
portion of the material separately in the ordinary machine or apparatus, with
cylinders and rollers covered with cards known by the name of a "scribbler,"
from which it is taken off in a continuous stream or sliver, which I wind upon
spools or bobbins; 1 next place the several spools, with their differently colored
slivers upon them, in a frame made to receive them, near to the feeding rollers
of a second machine or apparatus, with cylinders and rollers covered with cards
ordinarily known as a "carder" or finisher, and having disposed each spool
with its appropriate color or mixture of colors in a convenient part of the said
frame, according to the pattern required to be produced, I take the end of
the sliver on each spool, and put the said ends into the feeders of the carder.
A heck is placed immediately in front of the feeders, for the purpose of keep-
ing each sliver in its proper place, the divisions of the said heek being from half
an inch or less to an inch and a half or more, according to the size of the
clouds or spots required. When the ends of all the slivers have been properly
put into the feeders across the whole width of the carder, I put the machine
in motion, and the wool or material is then carried forward by the cylinders
and rollers, and delivered in the form of small rowans or cardings, each rowan
containing in a mottled or blended state all the colors or mixtures of colors
that are fed in. In performing this process, the slivers are fed in lengthways
of the machine, and the rovings are removed transversely, or from across the

page_text: machine, in the usual manner, so that part of the wool or material of each
sliver forms a portion of each rowan. It is evident that as the wool or material
passes through the machine in a straight line the clouding or spots in the
rowan will depend upon the arrangement of the various slivers relatively to
each other, and consequently I make this arrangement in accordance with the
pattern intended to be produced.
I next take the rowans so manufactured and join them together end to end,
in the usual way, and submit them to the process of slubbing in the machine
ordinarily known as a "billy," and, finally, I employ the machines ordinarily
known as "mules," for spinning the slubbings to the size of yarn required.
The yarns thus finished will contain two or more colors or mixtures of colors
in succession, so as to present a mottle:l, marled, clouded, or spotted appearance,
according to the number and arrangement of colors given to the rowans, and
the width of the slivers of which they are composed. And it is evident that an
almost endless variety of patterns or combinations of colors may be produced
by the various arrangements of the slivers which are employed.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Roberts, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-eighth day of August, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-one
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-eighth day of August,
in the year of our Lord 1851, the aforesaid George Roberts came before our
said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to
the tenor of the Statute made for that
purpose.
Enrolled the Fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.