Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/533

Rh COTTON 501 he can dispense with the warping mi)!, the bobbins being taken at once to the beaming machine. The warp is then compressed between two rollers, to free it from the mois ture it had imbibed with the dressing, and drawn over a succession of tin cylinders heated by steam, to dry it. During the whole of this last part of its progress, it is lightly brushed as it moves along, and fanned by rapidly revolving fanners. Peter Marsland of Stockport, who for many years had a large factory for weaving cotton cloth of a superior quality, was the inventor of an improvement upon the power-loom, by means of the double crank, for which, about the year 1807, he obtained a patent. The operation of the crank is to make the lathe give a quick blow to the cloth on coming in contact with it, and by that means render it more stout and even. The weaving of calicoes by power did not succeed in Lancashire so early as it did in Scotland. In 1817, the number of power-looms in Lancashire was estimated to be about 2000, of which only about 1000 were said to be then in employment. The cause of this was that the price paid at the time we refer to for weaving by the hand had been forced down to the very lowest degree by the depressed state of trade, and the pressure of an overgrown population bearing upon the means of employ tnent. Wages had fallen below the rate at which the goods could be produced by machinery. This struggle for existence between the two processes terminated, how ever, as might have been expected. The hand-weavers, finding it impossible to go on with the reduced wages, gradually gave way. Their numbers ceased to increase ; and the extraordinary addition to the amount of the manu facture since that time has been the product of the power- loom. Goods of very low and fine qualities are still woven by the hand. There is a branch of the cotton manufacture yet to be noticed, a branch not derived from the East, like muslin, but one that has had its origin in England, namely, the bobbinet or Nottingham lace manufacture, which now furnishes employment for a large amount of labour and capital. See LACE. Cotton Manufacture in Scotland. Previous to 1778 there were no pure cotton fabrics woven in Scotland, and the only form in which the fibre was used to any considerable extent was in the manufacture of blunks, a coarse kind of handkerchef having linen warp and cotton weft. The first cotton-mill in Scotland was erected at Penicuik, and the second at Rothesay in 1779. These were succeeded by others at Barrhead, Johnstone, and other localities where a suitable supply of water could be obtained, as, excepting horses and oxen, it was at th;it period the only power available. The name of David Dale is closely associated with the early progress of cotton spinning and weaving in Scotland. In 1785 Dale began, with Arkwright, who that year had been beaten out of his patent rights by the Lancashire spinners, to erect cotton- mills at New Lanark. These mills were the most extensive of their period ; and they at a later time acquired a very wide notoriety by being made the scene in conjunction with his establishment at Orbiston in the parish of Bothwell of the attempt of Robert Owen, Dale s son-in-law, to commence the regeneration of society by a practical exemplification of the virtues of socialism. Owen s fidelity to his convictions cost him a princely fortune, and the mills passed in 1827 into the hands of a firm with, perhaps, less lofty but more practical views. By the year 1787 there were nineteen cotton spinning-mills in Scotland. Although all the great inventions which revolutionized the spinning trade were of English origin, many adaptations which greatly facilitated the working of spinning machinery were devised by the ingenuity of Scotch manufacturers. Cartwright s power-loom was introduced into Glasgow in 1793, by James Lewis Robertson, who, when on a visit to London, had seen it in operation in the hulks. He obtained and brought away two, which he had fitted up in a cellar in Argyle Street, the motive power being a large Newfoundland dog which walked inside a revolving drum or cylinder. In the following year about forty power-looms were fitted up in a factory at Milton, near Dumbarton, for weaving printing-calicoes, and in 1801 John Monteith erected a factory for the accommodation of 200 looms at Pollokshaws. The looms were subsequently adopted in 1805 by Archibald Buchanan for the Catrine Mills; and as the apparatus improved in efficiency its progress became rapid, new power-loom factories being erected almost every year thereafter in Glasgow, till in 1817 there existed fifteen factories containing 2275 looms. Glasgow r and Paisley manufacturers having been from very early times engaged in the linen, cambric, and lawn trade, to which in the latter town in the year 1760 the manufacture of silk gauzes was added, it was natural that on the introduction of cotton spinning the attention of weavers should be directed to the finer and more delicate fabrics into which cotton fibre can be wrought. Muslins, therefore (plain for the most part in Glasgow, and fancy ornamented in Paisley),were among the earliest and principal cotton fabrics produced on the looms of the west of Scotland. About the year 1780 James Monteith, the father of Henry Monteith, the founder of the great print works at Barrowfield, and of the spinning and weaving mills at Blantyre, warped a muslin web, the first attempted in Scotland ; and he set himself resolutely to try to imitate or excel the famous products of Dacca and other Indian muslin-producing centres. As the yarn which could then be produced was not fine enough for his purposes, he procured a quantity of &quot; bird-nest &quot; Indian yarn, &quot; and employed James Dalziel to weave a 6-4th 12 book with a hand- shuttle, for which he paid him 2 Id. per ell for weaving. It is worthy of remark that the same kind of web is now wrought at 2|d. per ell. The second web was wove with a fly shuttle, which was the second used in Scotland. The Indian yarn was so difficult to wind that Christian Gray, wife of Robert Dougall, bellman, got 6s. 9d. for winding each pound of it. When the web was finished Mr Monteith ordered a dress of it to be embroidered with gold, which he presented to Her Majesty Queen Charlotte.&quot; 1 Once fairly established, the muslin trade and various ether cotton manufactures developed with extraordinary rapidity, and diverged into a great variety of products which were disposed of through equally numerous channels. Among the earliest staples, along with plain book muslins, came mulls, jacconets or nainsooks, and checked and striped muslins. Ginghams and pullicats formed an early and very important trade with the West Indian market, as well as for home consumption. These articles for a long period afforded the chief employment to the hand -loom weavers in the numerous villages around Glasgow and throughout the west of Scotland. The weaving of sprigged or spotted muslins and lappets was subsequently introduced, the latter not having been commenced till 1814. Although the weaving of ordinary grey calico for bleaching or printing purposes has always held and still retains an important place among Glasgow cotton manufactures, it has never been a peculiar feature of the cotton industry ; and the very extensive bleaching and print-works of the locality have always been supplied with a proportion of their material from the great cotton manufacturing districts of Lancashire. Cleland s Former and Present State of Glasgow, 1S40.