Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/489

Rh development subsequent to, and undoubtedly caused by, the substitution of machine for hand manufacture. The clip of the United States has increased from a few hundred thousand pounds, at the time of the Revolution, to over 300,000,000 pounds, and the product of the continental countries has also increased very greatly in the interval.

To fully realize the quantity of raw material now consumed in what are commonly known as woolen goods, we must estimate the quantity of waste and substitutes utilized as equal to that of wool; and thus we have 4,000,000,000 pounds of raw material passing annually through the looms of the world. Hand manufacture knew no such thing as a substitute for wool. The raw material has only been kept abreast of the manufacturing capacity by the discovery of methods for the utilization of these substitutes.

Something of what the world has gained in quantity has been lost in quality at certain points. It can not be pretended that the utilization of wastes and substitutes does not involve a certain element of deterioration. Nevertheless it is a distinct gain to the world, as is every new development that reduces the waste in any branch of industry. Within a few years a machine has been invented, known as the Garnett machine, which enables manufacturers to comb out all their waste, whether from cards, mules, spinning-frames, or from whatever source tangled and twisted fibers are produced in the various processes of manufacture, and to so restore it that it may be again utilized in connection with the original fiber. The saving thus effected is enormous. The machine, as the illustration shows, is in principle the same as the carding-engine. Its strong, sharp-pointed, steel teeth gradually untwist and teasel out the kink in yarn or thread, restoring the fibers of wool in nearly their original length of staple.

The fiber of wool has a wonderful capacity of endurance. Once used it may be, and is, used again and again, reproduced, not with all its original virtues, but still with many serviceable qualities, and called, according to its form, shoddy, mungo, waste, wool-extract. The French, by a happy conceit, call this material renaissance; and it is literally wool born again. By chemical processes the wool in mixed goods is separated from the cotton or other fibers employed for its adulteration, and wonderful machines tear it apart, readjust its fibers, and prepare it again for the spindles. Thus it goes into new garments, of a cheap grade, to be sure, but, if properly prepared, of a serviceable quality. It is customary to speak contemptuously of shoddy and of those engaged in its manufacture and use. But those who do so do not understand how important is the part now played by this preparation in the cheapening of the people's clothing and in the well-dressed appearance of the community. Goods into which this material