de to whirl around by an endless
belt. This whirling twists the thread, and another part of the machine
winds it upon the second bobbin. Hundreds of these ring-spinners and
bobbins are on a single "spinning-frame" and accomplish a great deal
in a very short time. The threads that are to be used for the "weft"
or "filling" go directly into the shuttles of the weavers after being
spun; but those which are to be used for "warp" are wound first on
spools, then on beams to go into the loom.

Little children weave together strips of paper, straws, and
splints,--"over one, under one,"--and the weaving of plain cotton
cloth is in principle nothing more than this. The first thing to do
in weaving is to stretch out the warp evenly. This warp is simply
many hundreds of tiny threads as long as the cloth is to be,
sometimes forty or fifty yards. They must be stretched out side by
side and close together. To make them regular, they are passed
between the teeth of a sort of upright comb; then they are wound upon
the loom beam, a horizontal beam at the back of the loom. Here they
are as close together as they will be in the cloth. With a magnifying
glass it is easy to count the threads of the warp in an inch of
cloth. Some kinds of cloth have a hundred or even more to the inch.
In order to make cloth, the weaver must manage in some way to lower
every other one of these little threads and run his shuttle over
them, as the children do the strips of paper in their paper weaving.
Then he must lower the other set and run the shuttle over _them_.
"Drawing in" makes this possible. After the threads leave the beam,
they are drawn through the "harnesses." These are hanging frames, one
in front of the other, filled with stiff, perpendicular threads or
wires drawn tight, and with an eye in each thread. Through these eyes
the threads of the warp are drawn, the odd ones through one, and the
even through the other. Then, keeping the threads in the same order,
they pass through the teeth of a "reed,"--that is, a hanging frame
shaped like a great comb as long as the loom is wide; and last, they
are fastened to the "front beam," which runs in front of the weaver's
seat and on which the cloth is to be rolled when it has been woven.
Each harness is connected with a treadle. The weaver puts his foot on
the treadle of the odd threads and presses them down. Then he sends
his shuttle, containing a bobbin full of thread, sliding across over
the odd threads a