on simultaneously by the rollers, are laid one
upon another at the front so that thick and thin places amalgamate to
produce a sheet of uniform thickness. The use of the Ribbon Machine is
limited at present owing to its possessing certain disadvantages.

CHAPTER XI.

DESTINATION OF THE SPUN YARN.

Having initiated our readers into all the processes incidental to the
production of the long fine threads of yarn from the ponderous and
weighty bales of cotton as received at the mill, it remains for us to
briefly indicate the more common uses to which the spun yarn is applied.

A very large quantity of yarn is consumed in the weaving mills for the
production of grey cloth without further treatment in the spinning mill,
except that the cops of yarn are packed in ships, boxes, or casks, in
convenient form for transit purposes.

If for weft, the cops are forthwith taken to the loom, ready for the
shuttle.

If for warp, then the yarn passes through a number of processes
necessary for its conversion, from the mule cop or ring bobbin form,
into the sheet form, consisting of many hundreds of threads, which are
then wound on a beam.

Briefly enumerated, these processes are as follows:--

(_a_) The winding frame, in which the threads from the cops or spools
are wound upon flanged wooden bobbins, suitable for the creel of the
next machine.

(_b_) The beam warping frame, in which perhaps 400 threads are pulled
from the bobbins made at the winding frame, and wound side by side upon
a large wooden beam.

(_c_) The "slasher sizing frame," in which the threads from perhaps five
of the beams made at the warping machine are unwound and laid upon one
another, so as to form a much denser warp of perhaps 2000 threads, and
wrapped on a beam in a suitable form for fitting in the loom as the warp
or "woof" of the woven fabric. In addition to this, the sizing machine
contains mechanism by which the threads are made to pass through a
mixing of "size" or paste, which strengthens the threads.

In some cases this "size" is laid on the yarn very thickly, in order to
make the cloth weigh heavier.

(_d_) After sizing comes the subsidiary process of "drawing in" or
"twisting in," by which all the threads are passed in a suitable manner
through "healds" and "reeds," so as to allow of their proper
manipulation by the mechanism of the loom, to which they are immediately
afterwards transferred.

In the production of cloths of a more or