volving bar; the lifting cords then insinuate themselves between the slits, and are raised by means of their knots, as before described.

For clearer elucidation, the board b b is here given, with its circular holes and slits for the passage or detention of the knots. It must be borne in mind, that instead of the small number here delineated, this board has 400, and sometimes even a greater number, of holes and slits, but the indication of which in so small a space as this diagram would have rendered it less clear and intelligible.

Fig. 24.

In the course of the very few years during which the Jacquard machine has been known in England, it has been thus materially simplified and improved; while in Lyons, the city of its birth, it still remains unaltered, either in form or arrangement, from the original conception of its first ingenious inventor. It has been recorded by the baron Ch. Dupin, that Jacquard had to encounter the most bitter annoyances from his fellow-citizens, who have been so materially benefited by his ingenuity. Several years elapsed before his machinery was generally adopted, during which period a thousand obstacles were offered to its introduction; a fact which can well be credited by all persons who have had opportunities for observing with what pertinacity old forms and practices are adhered to by the common-place bulk of every community; and how great is the disinclination of the operative mechanic to adopt improvements which, with a self-sufficiency engendered by the dexterity acquired in following old methods, he is pleased to condemn as "new-fangled nonsense."

The mode whereby the perforations in the card-slips are so made as to influence the raising of different portions of the warp threads in the order of succession necessary for making out the desired pattern, is exceedingly ingenious.

The pattern or as it is called, the design-is drawn of a size much larger than it is intended shall be given to it in the woven fabric, upon paper previously divided by lines into very small squares, in the manner described in the following

figure, the cross lines of which represent the intersecting threads of the goods. This mode of proceeding has been long followed in building the monture of draw-looms; that is, in preparing them for weaving intricate or extensive patterns.

Fig. 25.

Placing this paper before him, and provided with a frame containing a number of vertical threads answering to the warp of the goods, sufficient to comprise the width of the design, the workman proceeds to read on the design, by taking up with a very long needle such of the threads as are intersected by the pattern, inserting by its means a cross thread under these, and carrying it over all the remaining threads in the same line; repeating this process until he has inserted as great a number of shoots as there are of cross lines occupied in making out the pattern, and which sometimes amount to as many as five hundred shoots. Thus, in fact, transferring the design by a succession of what may be called darning stitches from the ruled paper to the threads in his frame,

To facilitate the reading on of the design, every tenth line which divides the pattern paper into squares is described in a bolder manner than the other lines. When the design is extensive, the operation is generally performed by two persons, one of whom directs what threads are to be raised, while the other makes the necessary insertions of the needle. In reading on the design here given (fig. 25.) the beginning would be made at the bottom, and as the spaces on the paper are always counted from right to left, the instruction would be, "pass thirty and take two." Part of the flower is de

scribed in the second row of squares, and the instruction for this would be "pass nineteen, take three; pass eight, take two." The third shoot comprises other parts of the flower, and the workman would be told, "pass ten, take three; pass five, take five; pass seven, take two; pass seven, take four;" and proceeding thus with as many cross shoots as there are of transverse lines on the paper, which in this case comprises only thirty-five, the whole design would be included.

This

When this is done, the next operation is to attach the threads thus interlaced to the card-punching machine. piece of mechanism is in every way similar in its principle, and nearly identical in its arrangements, with the Jacquard machine; being, like it, provided with lifting-cords, and wires, and needles, all connected in the manner already described in this chapter, so that by pulling the lifting-cords, the needles will be protruded. In front of these needles, and answering to the revolving bar, a perforated plate, about, two inches thick, is fixed: each of the perforations in this is provided with a movable steel punch or cutter of a cylindri cal form, so that the protrusion of any of the needles will drive forward their corresponding punches, and deposit them in another similarly perforated iron plate, about one inch in thickness, temporarily applied for that purpose against the face of the plate first described.

One end of each warp thread in the pattern is then to be connected in succession with the individual lifting-cords of the machine; and it is evident that if the different threads which form the shoot, and which for this purpose are made to hang out on each side beyond the selvage of the warp, are taken separately and in succession by each end and drawn upwards, all the warp threads wherewith each cross thread is engaged, will be separated from the rest, and may be collected together in the hand; by then pulling them, the particular lifting cords to which they are attached will be drawn, their corresponding needles will be protruded, and the cylindrical cutters by that means driven out of the perforations in the fixed plate into the corresponding cavities of the movable plate.

The blank card-slip, which is to be perforated, is next applied to the face of the movable plate, and against the points of the punches; and both being then removed together, and placed upon a third perforated plate in a press, the punches are driven through the card-slip in the requisite spots. The punches being replaced in the machine, a second shoot of the thread pattern drawn up, and its interlaced

warp thread pulled as before, the punches connected with the answering lifting-cords and needles are in like manner protruded into the movable plate, and forced through an other blank card; and, by proceeding in this manner, the whole series of card-slips will be unerringly prepared. Hay ing been previously numbered, there is no difficulty in attach ing them together in their proper order of succession, hole for this purpose being made by the same action of the pres which stamps the perforations for the pattern, punches fo this purpose being permanently inserted in proper cavities the movable iron plate.

A modification of the Jacquard machine has been intr duced to use by Mr. Samuel Dean, of Bethnal Green, al an operative weaver. In this the card-slips are altogethe dispensed with, by adopting the use of two revolving ba placed on opposite sides of the machine. Each of these baTM has eight faces, and the loom is actuated by two treadle The variations of pattern are provided for in the working this machine, by temporarily stopping such holes in the r volving bars as will influence the raising of those threads the warp upon which the production of the pattern depend It is quite obvious, however, that this modification can on be applied to the production of very simple patterns, it bein capable of employing no more than sixteen casts of the shu tle for their completion. This altered arrangement is, ther fore, of very limited utility, and bears no comparison wit the truly valuable invention of Jacquard.

In one branch, and that an essential one, of the interestin art of figure weaving, the manufacturers of Lyons enjoy superior reputation to us; their designs are more pleasing more varied, and display a more correct taste than ours ca boast. For this superiority there is a very sufficient reasor furnished, by the establishment existing in that city of "the School of Arts," which offers valuable means for the study of drawing in all its various branches, and where pattern de signers are ably instructed in all the best rules of the ar which they cultivate.

The English have been considered inferior to their conti nental neighbors in the faculty of invention, at least in this particular branch of the fine arts. Without entering into the investigation of this question, which might, perhaps, in any case, be decided more under the influence of national partiality than according to the fact, it must be owned that the French have adopted systematic means for calling forth and improving the talent of tasteful invention; while with