Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/141

Rh quite smooth. The trade in real Persian carpets was formerly limited, owing to their small size, as they were seldom larger than hearth-rugs, long and narrow in shape ; but with the extension of the European demand larger carpets are now made, and they are woven in pieces with separate borders, so that they can be sewed together. The introduction of aniline dyes into Persian designs is likely, it is feared, to be detrimental to the mellow effect of native colours. Very many of the imported carpets are considerably tarnished by exposure in bazaars, if they have not indeed been already used. To render these more saleable they are cleaned by cropping the surface, which in some cases is shaved quite close to the knot; hence a proportion of those brought to England have not their original richness and depth of pile. Carpets of silk were at one period extensively made in the country, but this manufacture has been entirely abandoned for more than a century. Felted carpets or nurmuds are also very largely made in Persia, but do not constitute an export commodity. Very beautiful patterns are produced in this felt carpeting, by means of coloured tufts of worsted inlaid or inserted during the process of manufacture, producing a regular pattern when finished.

Turkey Carpets.—The greater part of the real Turkey carpets imported into England are manufactured at Ushak or Ouchak, in the province of Aidin, about six days journey from Smyrna, and rugs are principally made at Kulah, an adjacent village. In the provinces of Khodavendikiar, Adana, and Nish numerous households are employed in their production, as also in the districts of Bozrah, the city of Aleppo, and the villages of Trebizond. Here and there, throughout Caramania, such carpets are also made. The Turcomans of Tripoli, the women of Candia, and the peasantry of Tunis and Algiers are likewise engaged in the fabrication of a similar kind of carpet. In none of these places, however, does any large manufactory exist; the carpets are the work of families and households. These carpets are woven in one piece, and there is this notable peculiarity in their manufacture, that the same pattern is never again exactly reproduced ; no two carpets are quite alike. The patterns are very remarkable, being rude and simple in design, and coining down from a very remote period. The colours are rich and harmonious, red or green being the usual ground colours with blues, yellows, and black, but very rarely is any white permitted to appear. The design is usually made up of a large central more or less diamonded pattern with smaller diamonds filling up the corners and sides, the whole surrounded with a border of lines of the different colours. Xo representation of any living form, nearer than what might be taken as the rude outline of leaves, is introduced into the designs. The peculiarities of the patterns have been accounted for on the theory that the Turkey carpet represents inlaid jewelled work, which accords with the Oriental delight in jewels and works in precious stones.

Indian Carpets.—The manufacture of carpets, which have a very wide range of texture, quality, and material, is widely distributed throughout the East Indies. The weaving is carried on entirely by natives, who combine this as a domestic industry with agricultural labour accord ing to the season. It has also been very widely adopted as a proper and profitable species of prison labour. The chief centres of the manufacture of woollen carpets, both for native use and export, are Mirzapore and Benares in the north-west provinces, and Masulipatam in the Madras Presidency, from which latter place the carpets most highly prized in Great Britain are imported. At Benares and Moorshedabad are produced velvet carpets with gold embroidery. A very elaborate carpet, sent from Kashmir to the Exhibition of 1851 by Maharajah Goolab Singh, was composed entirely of silk, with a pile nearly an inch thick, in every square foot of which, we are informed, there were at least ] 0,000 ties or knots. Orna mental hookah carpets and rugs with a silken pile are made in Mooltan, Amritsar, Peshawar, and Kashmir, those of Mooltan being the most famous. Woollen rugs are made very cheaply throughout Bengal and are in great demand ; but for texture, workmanship, and colouring the rugs of Ellore, Tanjore, and Mysore are unsurpassed. Cotton carpets or Xuttrinyces an? a cheap substitute for woollen fabrics in almost universal use throughout India. They are woven in stripes of either blue and white or red and white, the principal centres of the manufacture being Agra, Bareilly, Patna, Birbhum, and Bardwan. The price of these articles is generally determined by their weight, but those of Agra are accounted the best. There is considerable variety in the designs of Indian carpets, but it is allowed they exhibit perfection of harmonious colour ing. The prevailing colour is a full deep red, broken with leaves, ic., of an orange hue, and interspersed with soft- toned blues or greens. A creamy white is also introduced with excellent effect ; but of late years the introduction of bleached whites has robbed the patterns of that mellow subdued effect which constituted one of their leading charms. Carpets made in this hand or needle-work style to which we have hitherto been alluding have long been made at various places throughout Europe, and the manufacture is still continued. The most celebrated and artistic textures of this class are the Aubusson, Savonnerie, and Beauvaia carpets of France, and the similar products of Manufacture Royale de Tapis of Tournaiin Belgium. The manufacture of what are called Turkey carpets is also wide spread, and the common Axminster rugs of England are made on the same principle. But the characteristic carpet weaving of Europe is entirely the product of machine or loom work, and of such there are several distinct varieties. Of these the first is the

Kidderminster, or Scotch Carpet.—This is called also the ingrain carpet, and is made in many parts of Scotland and the north of England, and in the United States of America. It consists of worsted warp traversed by woollen weft, and is woven in pieces about a yard wide. It is composed of two distinct webs interlaced together at one operation and is therefore a double or two-ply carpet, similar on its two sides. In this article only two colours can with propriety be introduced, as otherwise it has a striped or mixed appearance. A pure or plain colour can only be obtained where the weft traverses the warp of the same colour. Suppose a crimson figure on a maroon ground ; the one web is maroon, the other is crimson, and the pattern is produced by these intersecting each other at fixed points ; what is crimson on one side being maroon on the other and vice versa. One beam contains the warp of both plies, ar ranged in two tiers, which is passed through the mails or metallic eyes of the harness two threads through each eye and thence through the reed. The harness draws up certain warp threads, to admit of the passage of the shuttle with the weft, the pattern depending upon the warp threads which are so drawn up. This was formerly effected by means of a revolving barrel, whose surface was studded with pins, which by rotation acted upon the warp threads. These studs being arranged so as to produce one pattern, a separate barrel or a new arrangement of the studs was requisite for every other pattern. But this machine is now superseded by the more efficient Jacquard apparatus, which produces the pattern by means of an endless chain of per forated cards working against parallel rows of needles. The successful introduction of the power-loom for the use of the carpet weaver, which was accomplished by the ingenious perseverance of Mr William Wood, about a 