"In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate and only for a short time. Conceiving in my great simplicity that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most valuable property by a patent, 4th of April, 1785. This being done, I then condescended to see how other people wove. And you will guess my astonishment when I compared their easy mode of operation and mine. Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its general principles nearly as they are now made; but it was not until the year 1787 that I completed my invention, when I took out my first weaving patent Aug. 1 of that year."
As usual this worthy man, who had won the right to the title he received, was not the only discoverer or inventor of the thing credited to his name. Long before his time a description of a similar loom had been presented to the Royal Society of London, but he had no knowledge of it. He spent between £30,000 and £40,000 bringing his invention to a successful stage, but failed to make it profitable to himself. A small return was made to him later, at the suggestion of the principal mill-owners of the country, when he received from the government the sum of £10,000. His work has been much improved in detail since, but it has never been altered in its main principles.
But with all our arts and marvelous machines the most beautifully fine cotton fabric is yet the Dacca muslin. It is called "woven wind," and when spread out upon the grass it is said to resemble gossamer. It used to be made for the Indian princes before the days when the British took possession of the country. It was made only in a strip of territory about forty miles long and three miles in width. With the change in rulers the weavers largely dropped the work which they and their ancestors had done for centuries, handing down their art from father to son; they took to the business of raising indigo, as their soil and climate were well adapted to its production and the demand was good.
Yet there are some of them weaving at this day, though not in sufficient numbers to produce the muslin as a regular article of commerce. A bamboo bow strung with catgut, like a fiddle string, is used to separate the fiber from the seed. It is carded with a big fishbone. The distaff is held in the hand and the loom is a very old-fashioned affair, home-made of bamboo reeds, so simple that a few shillings will purchase one, though a lifetime will not make one able to use it.
The weaver chooses a spot under the shade of a large tree, digs a hole in the dirt for his legs and the lower part of the "geer" and fastens his balances to some convenient bough overhead. His exceedingly fine threads will not work well except in such a shady spot and early in the morning, when there is just the right amount of moisture in the tropical air. There is no line of hand work in which there is such a contrast to-day as in the business of making cotton goods. Machinery has vastly outstripped the hand in quantity of product and accuracy, yet the old ways prevail in the manipulation of the very finest of web. Although Whitney's saw gin made a revolution in the industry, yet the long and delicate fibers of sea-island cotton are separated from the seed in the old way of passing seed cotton between two rollers which are going in different directions. The smooth seeds of this cotton pop away from the fiber quite readily without breaking it. If it were pulled through Whitney's gin there would be more or less tearing and breaking. So the great invention does not apply to cleaning the very finest material. The short wool fibers of common cotton are not so much hurt by the saw teeth and the amount of work done by the gin makes this damage of no account.
At the Atlanta Cotton Exposition in 1882 the old and the new were strikingly contrasted. The mountain people of the South, in many instances, live after the old fashions of colonial times. They make homespun cloth which is a revelation to us. Some of these people were induced to show their work at the exposition, and they were as much astonished at the apparel of their visitors who gazed upon them and their strange labor as were the visitors at the work and manners of the mountaineers.
Two carders operated hand cards, two spinsters ran the spinning-wheels and one weaver made cloth upon a hand loom. In ten hours these five people made eight yards of very coarse cloth.
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| FROM COL. F. KAEMPFER. A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. | CINNAMON TEAL. ½ Life-size. | COPYRIGHT 1900, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO. |
