Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/323

Rh deemed impossible to successfully weave the finer worsted fabrics except by hand.

There is no machine of Crompton's first build known to be extant, nor even a picture of one. In 1855 it was greatly improved, and its capacity increased from eighty to ninety picks per minute. The illustration shows one of the narrow looms of the 1855 pattern, with its working parts well brought out. In 1857 the Crompton



establishment perfected the pioneer broad loom, of which great numbers were made during the succeeding ten years. They were made ninety-two inches wide in the reed space, and attained a speed of eighty-five picks a minute with twenty-four harnesses, thus practically doubling the productive capacity of the operative, who could attend a broad loom as easily as a narrow loom. This machine was therefore an enormous stride in advance; none that has since been made can equal it.

Mechanical weaving has now reached a perfection that the hand-loom can not attain. There is greater regularity in the product, less waste of material, and great saving of labor—one weaver in the lighter fabrics easily attending to two or three looms. The power loom is worked without muscular effort, dexterity in the repairing of broken yarns being the chief