Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/325

Rh Homer describes a product of Creusa's shuttle, in which appeared a gorgon and dragons. The damasks and tapestries of the ancients were as elaborate in figure-work, woven into the warp and woof, and more beautiful in coloring, than modern machinery has ever achieved. The famous Gobelin tapestries, with their elaborate allegorical scenes, present a development of the art impossible



to automatic machinery. Neither has machinery increased the number or variety of the weaves in common use. But a single invention, that of Joseph Marie Jacquard, and known by his name, has made possible in power weaving the making of figured patterns without limit of variation, thus robbing the hand-loom of one of its last points of superiority. Jacquard perfected his