The spinning wheel here represented was the property of Richard Arkwright, and is now preserved in the South Kensington Museum, London. It is of a type first introduced about 1530. The thread of cotton or wool passes through an eye in the axis of the spindle and is subsequently wound on the bobbin which rotates on the same axis but at a different rate of speed. The rotation of the spindle twists and strengthens the thread, and the difference in speed of revolution between the spindle and the bobbin results in winding the thread about the bobbin. The spinning wheel is still in use in many outlying districts of Europe, as suggested by the photograph of the Belgian peasant above presented. The even more primitive method of spinning with distaff and spindle, without the aid of a wheel -the spindle being rotated by the fingers, as shown in the lower figure-is also still extensively practiced by the peasantry of various European countries.