res which have been, by
hydraulic or steam presses, converted into hard masses that resist
manual efforts to disentangle them. It may consist of three pairs of
spiked and one pair of fluted rollers. If so, the matted cotton is fed
into the first pair, seized by the second pair, which have a higher
surface velocity, and pulled, while the third pair reduce the whole to
a more or less fluffy mass, and the fluted rollers deliver it upon a
travelling lattice by which it is conveyed to, and deposited upon, the
floor of the mixing room. Instead of rollers, a _hopper breaker_ may
be used. In this machine the cotton is carried by a horizontal lattice
into contact with a sloping spiked one, whose spikes tear away small
tufts and deposit them upon a second lattice for removal to the mixing
room. A stack of pulled cotton is formed by superposing thin layers
from different bales, and when completed the cotton is drawn from top
to bottom of the stack. By this means a thorough mixing of fibres is
effected.

_The Opener._--Mixed cotton may be thrown upon a lattice and conveyed
to a spiked roller to be pulled, beaten, discharged into a trunk, and
drawn by pneumatic force to the opener. Or it may be spread (fig. 3)
upon a lattice (I), and carried between feed-rollers (E) to be
subjected to the action of a beater (A) whose teeth first seize tufts
of cotton and then fling them upon a grid (B), to be subsequently
seized by other teeth and again flung off until dirt and other
impurities pass between the grating. The beater may be cylindrical (as
at A) or in the form of a truncated cone: in either event, from four
to twelve rows of teeth project from its surface. It is from 18 in. to
upwards of 36 in. in diameter, approximately 40 in. wide, and the
largest cylindrical beaters make from 300 to 700 revolutions; whilst
conical beaters make about 1000, and small ones make from 1000 to 1500
revolutions per minute. The opened cotton is carried, in the direction
indicated by the arrows, upon a strong blast of air which is generated
by a fan (H), and this deposits it in patches upon the surfaces of two
perforated zinc or wire cylinders (C), but dust and foreign particles
pass through the interstices. As these cylinders revolve towards each
other the cotton passes between them in the form of a sheet to a pair
of feed-rollers (D), which may again deliver it to a beater with two
or