Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/324

310 of the operatives. Consequently, women have almost universally superseded men in its operation.

I shall attempt no description of the power-loom, or of its complicated motions. The illustrations represent the most recent patterns of American broad looms for heavy worsteds, of twenty-five or thirty-six harness capacity, upon which can be woven every variety of fabrics, from the simplest to the most intricate. These looms can be arranged for the Jacquard attachment.



Remarkable success has attended the efforts to increase the speed of the power-loom. They are built to vary in speed from fifty-four to three hundred picks a minute, according to the fabric upon which they are employed. One hundred and fifteen picks a minute, for each one of which the shuttle travels one hundred and fifteen inches, is now accomplished in the weaving of fancy worsteds. This is not a single or simple motion, but a series, each dependent on the other. The power-loom, at one and the same time, forms the shed in the warp threads, as called for by the pattern or design, and, through the agency of few or many harnesses, propels the shuttles in consecutive order across the piece, beats the picks of weft into close compact, and winds the woven cloth on the piece-beam. Should the wet yarn break or run off the bobbin, or should the shuttles fail to reach home, the loom automatically stops itself. What more can human ingenuity do for the power-loom?

However improved, the principle of weaving is that utilized in the primitive hand-looms. No more complicated pattern or weave can now be made than the ancients achieved on their hand-looms.