hydraulic ram, or a screw which is raised and lowered by a revolving nut. The bales turned out by this square press usually weigh 500 pounds gross, and average 28 x 56 x 42 inches in size and thus have a density per cubic foot of about 14 pounds. They are usually shipped from the gin house to some concentrating point where they are assorted and compressed, and their size is reduced to 28 x 56 x 18 inches, giving them a density of 30 or more pounds per cubic foot. They are then ready to be shipped to the cotton mills.

The large compressers which do this pressing are enormous machines weighing in some cases as much as 200,000 pounds, and are operated either by direct-acting steam cylinders coupled to the jaws of the press by multiplying levers, or the jaws of the press are brought together by a large link moved by hydraulic rams sitting directly over the press. The capacity of this press ranges from 800 to 1,200 bales in 10 hours. The bales while in the press are recovered and their bands are shortened to suit the reduced bulk.

Early in the present century the American Cotton Company developed a cylindrical bale, which permitted the cotton to be compressed more tightly and therefore to occupy less space in a freight car. A bat or layer of cotton is formed, rolled down very hard and wound up on itself, or rolled together under pressure and tension so that it forms a cylinder and tends to hold itself together. The square bale when compressed to more than 60 pounds to the foot required heavier bands or else it was apt to burst; but the cylindrical bale makes use of the cotton itself to hold it in place. It is simply wound up very tightly and tied, taking very readily a pressure of 35 to 40 pounds to the cubic foot. This bale is made in a bat-forming and condensing machine, and is usually made smaller and hence considerably lighter than the so-called square bale. This cylindrical bale has the advantage that it arrives at the cotton mill conveniently protected by bagging having neither wires nor hoops, and there is less tear and waste; it is also cheaper to manufacture.

Carding and Combing Machinery. The first machine to which the cotton goes in a factory is the bale-breaker, on which the cotton is opened and beaten. In modern practice there is less beating of cotton and more dependence on air suction to remove the dirt. Automatic feeders are now used with breakers. The breaker-lapper, after cleaning the cotton stock, converts it into a lap or roll, after which it may go to a finishing lapper. The carding machine was invented by Lewis Paul and improved by Arkwright. Modern machines are usually of the revolving flat card type. The main cylinder of about 50 inches diameter bears card-clothing or a surface of points resembling a very fine wire brush. This clothing may have from 40,000 to 90,000 points per square foot. Above and opposed to this cylinder is an endless apron called a top flat, which also bears card-clothing. The cylinder and flats moving oppositely comb out or card, or render parallel, the fibres of cotton that come into the machine in the form of a lap, and the top flat removes all knots and snarls. This lap is taken up by the licker-in, a toothed cylinder that feeds or supplies the carding machine. After passing

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the cards the cotton is received by the doffer or doffing cylinder.

A recent French invention is the Roth aspirator, which is applied to combers as a substitute for the doffer or doffing combs. It is a perforated tube with a suction draft and does the work without any harsh handling of the cotton fibres. The Whitin and high-speed comber has 8 heads, takes laps 12 inches wide and has devices for reducing vibration. It runs normally at 135 nips per minute.

The cotton comes from the doffer as a fleecy strand termed a sliver. It is deposited in cans and may go to a sliver-lap machine and be formed into a lap about 15 inches in diameter and 10 or 12 inches wide. This lap may go to the ribbon lap machine, which doubles four laps into one, the object being to obtain greater evenness from the repeated doublings and drawings out, and paralleling of the fibres. The laps from the ribbon lap machine are placed on the comber, which doubles eight to one. A combed sliver yarn gets 640 extra doublings and is smoother and more lustrous as a result.

Drawing, Roving and Twisting.— The drawing frame receives the sliver, and by passing it between series of rolls at increasing speeds draws it out finer. These machines have been highly developed and are truly automatic. When the drawn slivers are slightly twisted they are termed roves or rovings. Roving machinery includes slubbers, intermediates, fine roving frames and jack-frames. The product of the roving machine is usually delivered on bobbins and may then be termed yarn.

The Spinning Frame.- This is the machine that made Richard Arkwright famous, it being a development of the spinning jenny invented by James Hargreaves. Many other machines in the cotton industry are based on the same operating principles as the modern spinning frame. It draws out the fibres and twists the cotton yarn hard and firm and winds it on bobbins. The modern frame first passes the roving through a series of rolls that permit a variation in twist. When drawn to the required density and twist the yarn passes to the bobbins, mounted on rows of spindles that stand upright and rotate on either side of the frame. Frames run from about 112 to 352 spindles each, the 240-spindle frame being now popular. After being spun, the yarn is doubled and twisted to form thread. It may be twisted wet or dry; in wet twisting the yarn is drawn from a creel through a trough of water. In modern twist frames a wide range of twist combinations is possible for making all kinds of thread. With a builder-motion the bobbins may be wound straight, taper-top or for warp or filling. While in the yarn it is often desirable to bleach, dye or mercerize the cotton.

The mule-spinner or spinning-mule, invented by Samuel Crompton, is in less use than formerly. It is a combination of the drawing-rollers and jenny used in the early history of modern machine weaving. It has a carriage that travels away from the drawing rollers as the threads are twisted and comes back as the thread is wound on the bobbins. While the mule draws, stretches and twists at one operation, it is not as satisfactory as the later and more highly developed frames. The ring-spinner or ringframe is a spinning machine in which a metal loop revolves around each spindle to carry the

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thread. Spoolers and quillers are machines for winding the yarn on either spools or quillsthe modern quill being simply a paper tube. See SPINNING.

Weaving Looms. These are made in almost infinite variety for various purposes. The heavy-pattern loom, the wide loom and the endcam loom are perhaps the most common. For fancy weaving the dobby loom is generally employed. There are also special gingham looms and looms for light and heavy duck weaving, and two-, four- and six-box fancy looms. See TEXTILES; Weaving.

Testing Machinery.-A typical form of yarn-examining machine consists of a light hand-reel, in which a black card may be fitted to carry the wound yarn or thread. A moving guide spaces the yarn so that every strand is well separated. When wound the card of yarn may be placed under a microscope, or in the reflectorscope, which is a small box with a dark background, a mirror and an easily positioned microscope. To test yarn for dampness the conditioning oven is employed. A sample of yarn is hung on the scale of the oven and heated. As the moisture is dried out the reduced weight is registered on the scale. For strength-testing, an upright frame is provided with grips in which a number of leas of thread or yarn may be broken at one operation. If four leas are strained by the reel at one time, and the dial shows they break at 88 pounds, it follows that their average strength is 22 pounds. A single-thread recording tester is also manufactured. The operator can run through a sample, breaking it a dozen times, and follow this with other samples, and withdraw a card on which are recorded the breaking strains of each break of each sample. The average strength as well as the greatest weakness of a lot of thread is thus readily obtained. There are several forms of twist-testing machines and some record the contraction resulting from the twisting.

Bibliography.- Barker, A. F., "Textiles' (New York 1913); Miller, 'American Cotton System' (Austin, Tex. 1909); Peake, 'Cotton from the Raw Material to the Finished Product (New York 1911); and trade papers in the textile industry.

CHARLES H. COCHRANE,

Author of Modern Industrial Progress. COTTON MANUFACTURES IN THE UNITED STATES. Although cotton manufacturing is one of the oldest of the factory industries in the United States it had made but little progress until the embargo was laid upon foreign commerce during Jefferson's and Madison's administrations. It resulted in a remarkable development of the industry. Like all other industries it has had its periods of depression, but since that time there has not been a single decade- not excepting the Civil War period when cotton manufacturing has not shown a substantial growth.

No statistics of the industry were collected until the taking of the Federal census in 1839. That census showed 1,240 establishments at work, giving employment to 72,119 persons and turning out products valued at $46,350,000. The next census, 1849, returned 1,049 establishments, employing 92,286 persons, with manufactured products valued at $61,869,000, while to the

In addition to the value of the products in 1914, cotton goods to the value of $6,538,000 were produced by establishments engaged primarily in other lines of industry.

As measured by the amount of capital employed, and as indicating the progress made, the percentage increase in each decennial period is as follows: 1869-79, 48 per cent; 1879-89, 70 per cent; 1889-99, 32 per cent; 1899-1909, 76 per cent, and for six-year period 1909-14 91⁄2 per cent.

The number of spindles engaged in the production of yarn is another and more accurate method of measuring the growth of the cotton industry. decennial Thus, taking the same periods as above, and the seven-year period 1909-15, the following figures indicate the progress made in the United States, as well as in the cotton-growing States, New England and all other States.

Beginning with 1869 the increase in the number of spindles the first decade, 1869-79, was 3,521,000 or 49.4 per cent; the second, 1879-89, 3,731,000 or 35 per cent; the third, 1889-99, 5,088,000 or 34.4 per cent; the fourth, 1899– 1909, 8,546,000 or 44 per cent, and for the period 1909-15, 4,788,000 or 17 per cent. In addition to the above number of spindles, there were approximately 500,000 that used raw cotton mixed with other fibres in the manufacture of woolen goods, hosiery and knit goods.

The above figures show that within the past 16 years, or since 1900, the number of spindles in the United States has increased 14,417,000 or 77,4 per cent. But the most striking feature in