Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/273

 FLAX FLEABANE 265 held across a fixed block with corresponding grooves ; a rude spring jerks the movable block up again as the foot releases it. In the win- nowing or scutching the Germans make much use of a thin sabre-shaped wooden knife, with which they strike the flax as a handful of it is held in a horizontal groove in an upright board. The coarse tow and woody particles are thus removed, those which adhere most firmly being scraped or rubbed off by laying the flax upon the leather worn for this purpose upon the leg of the operator. It is estimated that 100 Ibs. of dried retted flax should yield 45 to 48 Ibs. of broken flax ; and from this when the boon waste is further removed by scutching about 24 Ibs. of flax are obtained and 9 or 10 Ibs. of tow. The breaking of 100 Ibs. of straw by the machine described requires the labor of 17 to 18 hours; and the cleaning of 100 Ibs. of broken flax by the swingling knife takes about 130 hours. Flax is broken also upon a larger scale by machines consisting of fluted rollers, variously contrived ; and other labor-saving machines with rotating blades have been ap- plied to the process of scutching. The next process is hatchelling or carding. As per- formed by hand, a wisp of flax, held in the middle and well spread out, is thrown so as to draw one end of it over a set of sharp steel teeth which are set upright and serve the pur- pose of a comb. One end of the bundle being hatch elled, it is turned round, and the other is treated in the same way ; and the process is repeated on finer hatchels. By this means about 50 per cent, of tow and dust and woody particles are separated from the long fibre, now called line. This is fit for spinning into linen threads, and the tow may be used for the same purpose for coarser fabrics. Machine hatchelling, however, has for the most part taken the place of hand labor, and is conducted upon a large scale and with many modifications in the extensive linen mills. The flax, being cut in lengths of 10 or 12 inches, is arranged in flat layers called stricks, the fibres parallel and ending together. Each of these is held by two strips of wood clamped together across its middle, or sometimes across one end. They are placed around a revolving drum, within which another drum armed with teeth rapidly revolves in a contrary direction, and combs the flax as the ends fall among the teeth. When hatchelled on one side the strick is turned over and the process is repeated on the other. The outer drum revolves slowly, and discharges the stricks when they have been carried over the t6p of the inner drum, beyond the point where the fibres could no longer fall among the teeth. Much ingenuity is displayed in the modifica- tions of this machinery, and also of a prepara- tory machine for dividing the fibres into equal lengths and sorting the lower ends, the middles, and the upper ends, each by themselves. The stricks when hatchelled are sorted according to the fineness of the fibres, those made up of the lower ends being the coarsest ; but the divi- sions are much more minute than those of each fibre into three lengths. In making this sep- aration the line sorter, as the operator is called, is guided entirely by the sense of feeling, this indicating the quality of the fibres more deli- cately than the sight. The next operation pre- paratory to spinning is to lay the fibres upon a feeding cloth, each successive wisp overlap- ping half way the one preceding it. The feed- ing cloth conveys them to rollers, between which they are flattened and held back as a second pair more rapidly revolving seizes the part in advance and draws out the flax. A tape or ribbon of flax is thus formed, which is discharged into a tin cylinder, a row of cylin- ders standing upon the floor in front of the machines. The tapes or slivers are afterward joined several together, and at the roving frame are slightly twisted, when they are wound upon bobbins, which is the last process before spin- ning. (See LINEN.) The principal treatise upon this subject is the prize essay of James MacAdam, jr., secretary to the society for the promotion and improvement of the growth of flax in Ireland. The prize was awarded to it by the royal agricultural society of England, and the essay was published in vol. viii. of their " Journal." It has furnished a great part of the data of many of the valuable papers pub- lished in the English scientific dictionaries. FLAXMAN, John, an English sculptor, born in York, July 6, 1755, died in London, Dec. 9, 1826. In the workshop of his father, a mould- er of figures in London, he acquired his first ideas of form. Showing a strong inclination for modelling, he was placed at the royal acade- my. After many years of severe study, during which he supported himself by designing for the Wedgwoods and others, and produced some meritorious works, including a monument to the poet Collins in Chichester cathedral, he went in 1787 to Rome. He had read the Greek poets in the original, and produced two series of outline illustrations of Homer and ^schylus, by which he is perhaps more widely known than by any of his other works. His series of illustrations of Dante is almost equally cele- brated. After seven years' sojourn in Rome he returned to England, and commenced a series of Scriptural compositions, remarkable for re- ligious fervor and pathos. Of the numerous statues which he executed, those of Nelson, Howe, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mansfield, and Kemble are the best known. His " Shield of Achilles" is one of the finest achievements of modern art. Flaxman was a member of the royal academy, in which he also filled the chair of professor of sculpture, to which he was appointed in 1810. He received for his designs for the Iliad and Odyssey, 73 in all, 15*. each, and for many of his models for Wedgwood only half a guinea. His lectures were published in 1829, and a new edition with a memoir in 1838. FLEA. See EPIZOA. FLEABANE, the common name of herbs of the genus erigeron, order composite, having a