nd winding. There are more spindles upon this frame than upon
the slubber.

The last drawing frame, except for very fine yarns spun from Egyptian or
Sea Island staples, is the roving frame, similar in principle to the last
two but containing still more spindles. It receives the rovings from the
intermediate frame, combines two of them into one, twists them a little
more, and winds them upon the spindle tubes. The Jack frame is similar
except that its product is finer and smoother.

[Illustration: _Sliver lappers in a Northern mill_]

It is interesting to note, however, that the majority of improvements
have been the fruit of the brains, not of Americans, but of Englishmen.
Copeland points out that this may be due to the English desire to save in
the consumption of cotton, but that more probably it is due to the
development of fine spinning in England, in which most of the machines
here described are chiefly valuable; and he ventures the prediction that
now that American mills have definitely gone in for the finer counts, it
may be expected that engineers here will apply themselves to the
improvement of this machinery.

[Illustration: _Drawing frames, turning slivers into roving_]

The "Mule" Versus
the Ring Spindle

Spinning is the final process which turns the cotton into firm, coherent
yarn, sufficiently twisted, and ready for the loom. The twist given to
the thread by the previous machines has been only enough to make the
fibers hold together. They are still comparatively loose and fluffy, and
their tensile strength is slight.

There are, in general, two types of spinning machines. The first, the
mule, an English product. The second, radically different, is entirely
American. It was invented in 1828 by James Thorpe, and immediately found
some favor, but it was not until the Civil War that it was received on
equal terms with the mule. Today, however, it dominates in the United
States, the comparative figures in 1917 being: ring spindles 30,264,074;
mule spindles 3,634,761. The disparity is growing greater every year, and
the use of the ring is firmly established in other countries as well. The
figures for 1907 were:

_Mule_ _Ring_
England (1909) 39,800,000 7,900,000
Germany 5,740,000 3,722,000
France 4,122,000 2,481,000
Austria 2,307,000 1,277,000
Italy 1,015,000 1,852,000
R