ee from short fibers, specks, and foreign
substances, and presents a fine, flowing, and lustrous appearance. The
short combed-out wool is called noils, and is used in making carpet
yarns, ground up into shoddy stock, or utilized in spinning fancy
yarns.

=Worsted Tops.= American textile manufacturers are finding it
advantageous to have their combing done by those who make the work a
specialty rather than to do it themselves. In the manufacture of tops
all varieties of combing wools are used: Australian, Merino, and
Crossbred wools, South American Merino and Crossbred wools, Cape
Merino wools, Merino and Crossbred wools grown in the United States,
the lustrous wools of pure English blood, Mohair from Asiatic Turkey,
and Alpaca from the Andes. Tops are sold to worsted spinneries.[13]
Many mills or worsted spinneries send their wools, either sorted or
unsorted as they may desire, to a combing mill, where the wool is put
into top at a lower price than that at which most spinneries can do
their own combing. By means of the naphtha process a larger amount of
top from a given amount of wool can be secured than by any other
process, and in addition, a top in better condition for drawing and
spinning.

[Illustration: COMB ROOM

1. Driving pulley on horizontal shaft (2).
3. Boxes containing bevel gears.
4. Pillars.
5. Driving pulley for dabbing motion.
6. Boxes containing dabbing-brush mechanism.
7. Dabbing brushes.
8. Star or stroker wheels.
9. Large circle containing rows of pins.
10. Drawing-off apron and rollers for large circle.
11. Brass boxes or conductors.
12. Guides for comb ball ends.
13. Comb balls (4 ends each).
14. Fluted wooden rollers on which comb balls rest.
15. Comb leg (4 in number).
16. Foundation plate.]

In a strand of combed wool, called top, no single fiber lies across
the strand; all lie in the direction of the length. This order is
preserved until the fibers have been converted into yarn, which is
accomplished by passing through "gill boxes." These gill boxes are
machines with bars of iron having upon their surface two rows of
minute steel pins, by this means kept perfectly straight. The bars on
which they are placed are worked on screws between two sets of
rollers. The wool enters between the first set of rollers, and, as it
passes through, is caught by one of these gills that is raised up for
the purpose, being succeeded by others as the rollers revolve. These
gills