and only half an inch thick. They are
white and fleecy and almost cloudlike; and so thin that any sand or
broken leaves still remaining will drop out of their own weight.

In this work the manufacturer has been aiming, not only at cleaning
the cotton and making it fluffy, but also at mixing it. There are many
sorts of cotton, some of longer or finer or more curly or stronger
fiber than others, some white and some tinged with color; but the
cloth woven of cotton must be uniform; therefore all these kinds must
be thoroughly mixed. Even the tossing and turning and beating that
it has already received is not enough, and it has to go into a
"scutcher," three or four laps at a time, one on top of another, to
have still more beating and dusting. When it comes out, it is in a
long roll or sheet, so even that any yard of it will weigh very nearly
the same as any other yard. The fibers, however, are lying "every
which way," and before they can be drawn out into thread, they must be
made to lie parallel. This is brought about in part by carding. When
people used to spin and weave in their own houses, they used "hand
cards." These were somewhat like brushes for the hair, but instead of
bristles they had wires shaped much as if wire hairpins had been bent
twice and put through leather in such a way as to form hooks on one
side of it. This leather was then nailed to a wooden back and a handle
added. The carder took one card in each hand, and with the hooks
pointing opposite ways brushed the cotton between them, thus making
the fibers lie parallel. This is just what is done in a mill, only by
machinery, of course. Instead of the little hand cards, there are
great cylinders covered with what is called "card clothing"; that is,
canvas bristling with the bent wires, six or seven hundred to the
square inch. This takes the place of one card. The place of the other
is filled by what are called "flats," or narrow bars of iron covered
with card clothing. The cylinders move rapidly, the flats slowly, and
the cotton passes between them. It comes out in a dainty white film
not so very much heavier than a spider's web, and so beautifully white
and shining that it does not seem as if the big, oily, noisy machines
could ever have produced it. In a moment, however, it is gone
somewhere into the depths of the machine. We have seen the last of the
fleecy sheet, for the machinery narrows it and rounds it, and when it
comes into sight again, it looks li