When automatic machinery for thread spinning was invented, English
intelligence and enterprise were quick to utilize and develop it, and
thus gained that supremacy in textile manufacture which has remained
up to the present time, and which will doubtless long continue. The
making of the primary thread is the foundation of all textile
processes, and it is on the possibility of doing this by automatic
machinery that England's great textile industries depend. The use of
highly developed machinery for spinning cotton, wool, and flax has
grown to be so much a part of our conception of modern life, as
contrasted with the times of our grandfathers, as often to lead to the
feeling that a complete and universal change has occurred in all the
textile industries. This is, however, not the case. There is one great
textile industry--one of the most staple and valuable--still in the
primitive condition of former times, and employing processes and
apparatus essentially the same as those known and employed before such
development had taken place. We mean the art of silk reeling. The
improvements made in the production of threads of all other materials
have only been applied to silk in the minor processes for utilizing
waste; but the whole silk trade and manufacture of the world has, up
to this time, been dependent for its raw silk threads upon apparatus
which, mechanically speaking, is nearly or quite as primitive as the
ancient spinning wheels. Thousands of operatives are constantly
employed in forming up these threads by hand, adding filament by
filament to the thread as required, while watching the unwinding from
the cocoon of many miles of filament in order to produce a single
pound of the raw silk thread, making up the thread unaided by any
mechanical device beyond a simple reel on which the thread is wound as
finished, and a basin of heated water in which the cocoons are placed.
Viewed from any standpoint to which we are accustomed, this state of
things is so remarkable that we are naturally led to the belief that
there must be some special causes which tended to retard the
introduction of automatic machinery, and these are not far to seek.
The spinning machinery employed for the production of threads, other
than those of raw silk, may be broadly described as consisting of
devices capable of taking a mass of confused and comparatively short
fibers, laying them parallel with one another, and twisting them into
a cylindrical thread, depending for its strength upon the friction and
interlocking of these constituent fibers.
This process is radically different from that employed to make a
thread of raw silk, which consists of filaments, each several thousand
feet long, laid side by side, almost without twist, and glued together
into a solid thread by means of the "gum" or glue with which each
filament is naturally coated. If this radical difference be borne in
mind, but very little mechanical knowledge is required to make it
evident that the principle of spinning machinery in general is utterly
unsuited to the making up of the threads of raw silk. Since spinning
machinery, as usually constructed for other fibers, could not be
employed in the manufacture of raw silk, and as the countries where
silk is produced are, generally speaking, not the seat of great
mechanical industries, where the need of special machinery would be
quickly recognized and supplied, silk reeling (the making of raw silk)
has been passed by, and has never become an industrial art. It
remained one of the few manual handicrafts, while yet serving as the
base of a great and staple industry of worldwide importance.
There is every reason to suppose that we are about to witness a
transformation in the art of silk reeling, a change similar to that
which has already been brought about in the spinning of other threads,
and of which the consequences will be of the highest importance. For
some years past work has been done in France in developing an
automatic silk-reeling machine, and incomplete notes concerning it
have from time to time been published. That the accounts which were
allowed to reach the outer world were incomplete will cause no
surprise to those who know what experimental work is--how easily and
often an inventor or pioneer finds himself hampered by premature
publication. The process in question has now, however, emerged from
the experimental state, and is practically complete. By the courtesy
of the inventor we are in a position to lay before our readers an
exact analysis of the principles, essential parts, and method of
operation of the new silk-reeling machine. As silk reeling is not
widely known in England, it will, however, be well to preface our
remarks by some details concerning the cocoon and the manner in which
it is at present manufactured into raw silk, promising that if these
seem tedious, the labor of reading them will be amply repaid by the
clearer understanding of the new mechanical process which will be the
result.
The silkworm, when ready to make its cocoon, seeks a suitable support.
This is usually found among the twigs of brush placed for the purpose
over the trays in which the worms have been grown. At first the worm
proceeds by stretching filaments backward and forward from one twig to
another in such manner as to include a space large enough for the
future cocoon. When sufficient support has thus been obtained, the
worm incloses itself in a layer of filaments adhering to the support
and following the shape of the new cocoon, of which it forms the
outermost stratum. After having thus provided a support and outlined
the cocoon, the worm begins the serious work of constrution. The
filament from its silk receiver issues from two small spinnarets
situated near its jaws. Each filament, as it comes out, is coated with
a layer of exceedingly tenacious natural gum, and they at once unite
to form a single flattened thread, the two parts lying side by side.
It is this flat thread, called the "baye" or "brin," which serves as
the material for making the cocoon, and which, when subsequently
unwound, is the filament used in making up the raw silk. While
spinning, the worm moves its head continually from right to left,
laying on the filament in a succession of lines somewhat resembling
the shape of the figure eight. As the worm continues the work of
making its cocoon, the filament expressed from its body in the manner
described is deposited in nearly even layers all over the interior of
the wall of the cocoon, which gradually becomes thicker and harder.
The filament issuing from the spinnarets is immediately attached to
that already in place by means of the gum which has been mentioned.
When the store of silk in the body of the worm is exhausted, the
cocoon is finished, and the worm, once more shedding its skin, becomes
dormant and begins to undergo its change into a moth. It is at this
point that its labors in the production of silk terminate and those of
man begin. A certain number of the cocoons are set aside for
reproduction.
In southern countries the reproduction of silkworms is a vast industry
to which great attention is given, and which receives important and
regular aid from the government. It is, however, quite distinct from
the manufacturing industry with which at present we have to do. The
cocoons to be used for reeling, i.e., all but those which are
reserved for reproduction, are in the first place "stifled," that is
to say, they are put into a steam or other oven and the insect is
killed. The cocoons are then ready for reeling, but those not to be
used at once are allowed to dry. In this process, which is carried on
for about two months, they lose about two-thirds of their weight,
representing the water in the fresh chrysalis. The standard and dried
cocoons form the raw material of the reeling mills, or filatures, as
they are called on the Continent. Each filature endeavors as far as
possible to collect, stifle, and dry the cocoons in its own
neighborhood; but dried cocoons, nevertheless, give rise to an
important commerce, having its center at Marseilles. The appearance of
the cocoon is probably well known to most of our readers. Industrially
considered, the cocoon may be divided into three parts: (1) The floss,
which consists of the remains of the filaments used for supporting the
cocoon on the twigs of the brush among which it was built and the
outside layer of the cocoon, together with such ends and parts of the
thread forming the main part of the shell as have become broken in
detaching and handling the cocoon; (2) the shell of the cocoon, which
is formed, as has been described, of a long continuous filament, which
it is the object of the reeler to unwind and to form up into threads
of raw silk; and (3) the dried body of the chrysalis.
We shall first describe the usual practice of reeling, which is as
follows: The cocoons are put into a basin of boiling water, on the
surface of which they float. They are stirred about so as to be as
uniformly acted upon as possible. The hot water softens the gum, and
allows the floss to become partially detached. This process is called
"cooking" the cocoons. When the cocoons are sufficiently cooked, they
are subjected to a process called "beating," or brushing, the object
of which is to remove the floss.
As heretofore carried on, this brushing is a most rudimentary and
wasteful operation. It consists of passing a brush of heather or broom
twigs over the floating cocoons in such manner that the ends of the
brush come in contact with the softened cocoons, catch the floss, and
drag it off. In practice it happens that the brush catches the sound
filaments on the surface of the cocoon as well as the floss, and, as a
consequence, the sound filament is broken, dragged off, and wasted. In
treating some kinds of cocoons as much as a third of the silk is
wasted in this manner, and even in the best reeling, as at present
practiced, there is an excessive loss from this cause. At the present
low price of cocoons this waste is not as important as it was some
time ago, when cocoons were much dearer; but even at present it
amounts to between fifteen and twenty millions of francs per annum in
the silk districts of France and Italy alone. In France the cooking
and brushing are usually done by the same women who reel, and in the
same basins. In Italy the brushing is usually done by girls, and often
with the aid of mechanically rotated brushes, an apparatus which is of
doubtful utility, as, in imitating the movement of hand brushing, the
same waste is occasioned.
After the cocoons are brushed they are, in the ordinary process,
cleaned by hand, which is another tedious and wasteful operation
performed by the reeler, and concerning which we shall have more to
say further on. Whatever may be the preparatory operations, they
result in furnishing the reeler with a quantity of cocoons, each
having its floss removed, and the end of the filament ready to be
unwound. Each reeler is provided with a basin containing water, which
may be heated either by a furnace or by steam, and a reel, upon which
the silk is wound when put in motion by hand or by power. In civilized
countries heating by steam and the use of motive power is nearly
universal. The reeler is ordinarily seated before the reel and the
basin. The reeler begins operations by assembling the cocoons in the
basin, and attaching all the ends to a peg at its side. She then
introduces the ends of the filaments from several cocoons into small
dies of agate or porcelain, which are held over the basin by a
support.
The ends so brought in contact stick together, owing to the adhesive
substance they naturally contain, and form a thread. To wring out the
water which is brought up with the ends, and further consolidate the
thread, it is so arranged as to twist round either itself or another
similar thread during its passage from the basin to the reel. This
process is called "croisure," and is facilitated by guides or small
pulleys. Having made the croisure, which consists of about two hundred
turns, the operator attaches the end of a thread to the reel,
previously passing it through a guide fixed in a bar, which moves
backward and forward, so as to distribute the thread on the reel,
forming a hank about three inches wide.
The reel is now put into movement, and winds the thread formed by the
union of the filaments. It is at this moment that the real
difficulties of the reeler begin. She has now to maintain the size and
regularity of the thread as nearly as possible by adding new filaments
at the proper moment. The operation of adding an end of a filament
consists of throwing it in a peculiar manner on the other filaments
already being reeled, so that it sticks to them, and is carried up
with them. We may mention here that this process of silk reeling can
be seen in operation at the Manchester exhibition.
It is only after a long apprenticeship that a reeler succeeds in
throwing the end properly. The thread produced by the several
filaments is itself so fine that its size cannot readily be judged by
the eye, and the speed with which it is being wound renders this even
more difficult. But, in order to have an idea of the size, the reeler
watches the cocoons as they unwind, counts them, and, on the
hypothesis that the filament of one cocoon is of the same diameter as
that of another, gets an approximate idea of the size of the thread
that she is reeling. But this hypothesis is not exact, and the
filament being largest at the end which is first unwound, and tapering
throughout its whole length, the result is that the reeler has not
only to keep going a certain number of cocoons, but also to appreciate
how much has been unwound from each.
If the cocoons are but slightly unwound, there must be fewer than if a
certain quantity of silk has been unwound from them. Consequently
their number must be constantly varying in accordance with their
condition. These facts show that the difficulty of maintaining
regularity in a thread is very great. Nevertheless, this regularity is
one of the principal factors of the value of a thread of "grege," and
this to such an extent that badly reeled silks are sold at from twenty
to twenty-five francs a kilogramme less than those which are
satisfactorily regular.
The difficulty of this hand labor can be still better understood if it
be remembered that the reeler being obliged to watch at every moment
the unwinding of each cocoon, in order to obtain one pound of well
reeled silk, she must incessantly watch, and without a moment of
distraction, the unwinding of about two thousand seven hundred miles
of silk filaments. For nine pounds of silk, she reels a length of
filament sufficient to girdle the earth. The manufacturer, therefore,
cannot and must not depend only on the constant attention that each
reeler should give to the work confided to her care. He is obliged to
have overseers who constantly watch the reelers, so that the defects
in the work of any single reeler, who otherwise might not give the
attention required by her work, will not greatly diminish the value
either of her own work or that of several other reelers whose silk is
often combined to form a single lot. In addition to the ordinary hand
labor, considerable expense is thus necessitated for the watching of
the reelers.
Enough has now been said, we think, to give a good idea of silk
reeling, as usually practiced, and to show how much it is behind other
textile arts from a mechanical point of view. To any one at all
familiar with industrial work, or possessing the least power of
analysis or calculation, it is evident that a process carried on in
so primitive a manner is entirely unsuitable for use in any country in
which the conditions of labor are such as to demand its most
advantageous employment. In the United States, for instance, or in
England, silk reeling, as a great national industry, would be out of
the question unless more mechanical means for doing it could be
devised. The English climate is not suitable for the raising of
cocoons, and in consequence the matter has not attracted very much
attention in this country. But America is very differently situated.
Previous to 1876 it had been abundantly demonstrated that cocoons
could be raised to great advantage in many parts of that country. The
only question was whether they could be reeled. In fact, it was stated
at the time that the question of reeling silk presented a striking
analogy to the question of cotton before the invention of the "gin."
It will be remembered that cotton raising was several times tried in
the United States, and abandoned because the fiber could not be
profitably prepared for the market. The impossibility of competing
with India and other cheap labor countries in this work became at
least a fact fully demonstrated, and any hope that cotton would ever
be produced in America was confined to the breasts of a few
enthusiasts.
As soon, however, as it was shown that the machine invented by Eli
Whitney would make it possible to do this work mechanically, the
conditions were changed; cotton raising become not only possible, but
the staple industry of a great part of the country; the population was
rapidly increased, the value of real estate multiplied, and within a
comparatively short time the United States became the leading cotton
country of the world. For many years much more cotton has been grown
in America than in all the other countries of the world combined; and
it is interesting to note that both the immense agricultural wealth of
America and the supply required for the cotton industry of England
flow directly from the invention of the cotton gin.
Attention was turned in 1876 to silk raising, and it was found that
all the conditions for producing cocoons of good quality and at low
cost were most favorable. It was, however, useless to raise cocoons
unless they could be utilized; in a word, it was seen that the country
needed silk-reeling machinery in 1876, as it had needed cotton-ginning
machinery in 1790. Under these conditions, Mr. Edward W. Serrell, Jr.,
an engineer of New York, undertook the study of the matter, and soon
became convinced that the production of such machinery was feasible.
He devoted his time to this work, and by 1880 had pushed his
investigations as far as was possible in a country where silk reeling
was not commercially carried on. He then went to France, where he has
since been incessantly engaged in the heart of the silk-reeling
district in perfecting, reducing to practice, and applying his
improvements and inventions. The success obtained was such that Mr.
Serrell has been enabled to interest many of the principal silk
producers of the Continent in his work, and a revolution in silk
reeling is being gradually brought about, for, strangely enough, he
found that the work which he had undertaken solely for America was of
equal importance for all silk-producing countries.
We have described the processes by which cocoons are ordinarily cooked
and brushed, these being the first processes of the filature. Instead
of first softening the gum of the cocoons and then attacking the floss
with the points of a brush, Mr. Serrell places the cocoons in a
receptacle full of boiling water, in which by various means violent
reciprocating or vortex currents are produced. The result is that by
the action of the water itself and the rubbing of the cocoons one
against the other the floss is removed, carrying with it the end of
the continuous filament without unduly softening the cocoon or
exposing any of the more delicate filament to the rough action of the
brush, as has hitherto been the case. The advantages of this process
will be readily understood. In brushing after the ordinary manner, the
point of the brush is almost sure to come into contact with and to
break some of the filament forming the body of the cocoon. When this
occurs, and the cocoon is sent to be reeled, it naturally becomes
detached when the unwinding reaches the point at which the break
exists. It then has to be sent back, and the end of the filament
detached by brushing over again, when several layers of filament are
inevitably caught by the brush and wasted, and very probably some
other part of the filament is cut. This accounts for the enormous
waste which occurs in silk reeling, and to which we have referred. Its
importance will be appreciated when it is remembered that every pound
of fiber thus dragged off by the brush represents a net loss of about
19s. at the present low prices.
The mechanical details by which Mr. Serrell carries out this process
vary somewhat according to the nature of the different cocoons to be
treated. In one type of machine the water is caused to surge in and
out of a metal vessel with perforated sides; in another a vertical
brush is rapidly raised and lowered, agitating the water in a basin,
without, however, actually touching the cocoons. After a certain
number of strokes the brush is automatically raised, when the ends of
the filaments are found to adhere to it, having been swept against it
by the scouring action of the water. The cleaning of the cocoons is
performed by means of a mechanism also entirely new. In the brushing
machinery the floss is loosened and partially detached from the
cocoon. The object of the cleaning machine is to thoroughly complete
the operation. To this end the cocoons are floated under a plate, and
the floss passed up through a slot in the latter. A rapid to and fro
horizontal movement is given to the plate, and those cocoons from
which the floss has been entirely removed easily give off a few inches
of their filament, and allow themselves to be pushed on one side,
which is accomplished by the cocoons which still have some floss
adhering to them; because these latter, not being free to pay off, are
drawn up to the slot in the plate, and by its motion are rapidly
washed backward and forward in the water. This washing soon causes all
the cocoons to be freed from the last vestiges of floss without
breaking the filament, and after about twenty seconds of movement they
are all free and clean, ready for reeling.
We have now to explain the operation of the machine by which the
thread is formed from the prepared cocoon. At the risk of some
repetition, however, it seems necessary to call attention to the
character of the work itself. In each prepared cocoon are about a
thousand yards of filament ready to pay off, but this filament is
nearly as fine as a cobweb and is tapering. The object is to form a
thread by laying these filaments side by side in sufficient number to
obtain the desired size. For the threads of raw silk used in commerce,
the sizes vary, so that while some require but an average of three
filaments, the coarsest sizes require twenty-five or thirty. It being
necessary keep the thread at as near the same size as possible, the
work required is, in effect, to add an additional cocoon filament to
the thread which is being wound whenever this latter has tapered down
to a given size, or whenever one of the filaments going to form it has
become detached. Those familiar with cotton spinning will understand
what is meant when it is said that the reeling is effectively a
"doubling" operation, but performed with a variable number of ends, so
as to compensate for the taper of the filaments. In reeling by hand,
as has been said, the size of the silk is judged, as nearly as
possible, by a complex mental operation, taking into account the
number, size, and state of unwinding of the cocoons. It is impossible
to do this mechanically, if for no other reason than this, that the
cocoons must be left free to float and roll about in the water in
order to give off their ends without breaking, and any mechanical
device which touched them would defeat the object of the machine. The
only way in which the thread can be mechanically regulated in silk
reeling is by some kind of actual measurement performed after the
thread has left the cocoons. The conditions are such that no direct
measurement of size can be made, even with very delicate and expensive
apparatus; but Mr. Serrell discovered that, owing to the great
tenacity of the thread in proportion to its size, its almost absolute
elastic uniformity, and from the fact that it could be stretched, two
or three per cent. without injury, it was possible to measure its size
indirectly, but as accurately as could be desired. As this fact is the
starting point of an entirely new and important class of machinery, we
may explain with considerable detail the method in which this
measurement is performed. Bearing in mind that the thread is of
uniform quality, it is evident that it will require more force to
stretch a coarse thread by a given percentage of its length than it
will to stretch one that is finer. Supposing the thread is uniform in
quality but varying in size, the force required to stretch it varies
directly with the size or sectional area of the thread itself. In the
automatic reeling machine this stretch is obtained by causing the
thread to take a turn round a pulley of a given winding speed, and
then, after leaving this pulley, to take a turn around a second pulley
having a somewhat greater winding speed.
[Illustration: Fig. 1 THE MECHANICAL REELING OF SILK.]
By this means the thread which is passing from one pulley to the other
is stretched by an amount equal to the difference of the winding speed
of the two pulleys. In the diagram (Fig. 2) the thread passes, as
shown by the arrows, over the pulley, P, and then over the pulley, P¹,
the latter having a slightly greater winding speed. Between these
pulleys it passes over the guide pulley, G. This latter is supported
by a lever hinged at S, and movable between the stops, TT¹. W is an
adjustable counterweight. When the thread is passed over the pulleys
and guided in this manner, the stretch to which it is subjected tends
to raise the guide and lever, so that the latter will be drawn up
against the stop, T¹, when the thread is so coarse that the effort
required to stretch it is sufficient to overcome the weight of the
guide pulley and the adjustable counterweight. But as the thread
becomes finer, which, in the case of reeling silk, happens either from
the tapering of the filaments or the dropping off of a cocoon, a
moment arrives when it is no longer strong enough to keep up the lever
and counterweight. These then descend, and the lever touches the lower
stop, T. It will be readily seen that the up and down movements of the
lever can be made to take place when the thread has reached any
desired maximum or minimum of size, the limits being fixed by suitably
adjusting the counterweight.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
In the automatic reeling machine this is the method employed for
regulating the supply of cocoons. The counterweight being suitably
adjusted, the lever falls when the thread has become fine enough to
need another cocoon. The stop, T, and the lever serve as two parts of
an electric contact, so that when they touch each other a circuit is
completed, which trips a trigger and sets in motion the feed apparatus
by which a new cocoon is added. In practice the two drums or pulleys
are mounted on the same shaft, D (Fig. 1), difference of winding speed
being obtained by making them of slightly different diameters.
The lever is mounted as a horizontal pendulum, and the less or greater
stress required according to the size to be reeled is obtained by
inclining its axis to a less or greater degree from the vertical. An
arrangement is also adopted by which the strains existing in the
thread when it arrives at the first drum are neutralized, so far as
their effect upon the lever is concerned. This is accomplished by
simply placing upon the lever an extra guide pulley, L¹, upon the side
opposite to that which corresponds to the guide shown in the diagram,
Fig. 2.
An electric contact is closed by a slight movement of the lever
whenever the thread requires a new filament of cocoon, and broken
again when the thread has been properly strengthened. It is evident
that a delicate faller movement might be employed to set the feed
mechanism in motion instead of the electric circuit, but, under the
circumstances, as the motion is very slight and without force, being,
in fact, comparable to the swinging of the beam of a balance through
the space of about the sixteenth of an inch, it is simpler to use a
contact.
The actual work of supplying the cocoons to the running thread is
performed as follows: The cleaned cocoons are put into what is called
the feeding basin, B1 (Fig. 1), a receptacle placed alongside of the
ordinary reeling basin, B, of a filature. A circular elevator, E, into
which the cocoons are charged by a slight current of water, lifts them
over one corner of the reeling basin and drops them one by one through
an aperture in a plate about six inches above the water of the reeling
basin.
The end of the filament having been attached to a peg above the
elevator, it happens that when a cocoon has been brought into the
corner of the reeling basin, the filament is strung from it to the
edge of the hole in the plate in such a position as to be readily
seized by a mechanical finger, K (Fig. 3), attached to a truck
arranged to run backward and forward along one side of the basin. This
finger is mounted on an axis, and has a tang projecting at right
angles to the side of the basin, so that the whole is in the form of a
bell crank mounted on the truck.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
There are usually four threads to each basin. When neither one of them
needs an additional cocoon, the finger of the distributing apparatus
remains, holding the filament of the cocoon at the corner of the basin
where it has been dropped. When a circuit is closed by the weakening
of any one of the threads, an electromagnetic catch is released, and
the truck with its finger is drawn across the basin by a weight. At
the same time the stop shown dotted in Fig. 3 is thrown out opposite
to the thread that needs strengthening. This stop strikes the tang of
the finger, and causes the latter to be thrown out near to the point
at which the filaments going to make up the weakened thread are being
drawn from the cocoons. Here the new filament is attached to the new
running thread by a kind of revolving finger, J, called in France a
"lance-bout." This contrivance takes the place of the agate of the
ordinary filature, and is made up, essentially, of the following
parts:
(1) A hollow axis, through the inside of which the thread passes
instead of going through the hole of an agate. This hollow axis is
furnished, near its lower end, with a ridge which serves to support a
movable portion turning constantly round the axis. (2) A movable
portion turning constantly round the axis. (3) A finger or hook
fastened on the side of the movable portion and revolving with it.
This hook, in revolving, catches the filament brought up by the finger
and serves it on to the thread.
Such are the principal parts of the automatic reeling machine.
Although the fact that this machine is entirely a new invention has
necessitated a somewhat long explanation, its principal organs can
nevertheless be summed up in a few words: (1) A controlling drum which
serves to give the thread a constant elongation; (2) a pulley mounted
on a pivot which closes an electric current every time that the thread
becomes too fine, and attains, in consequence, its minimum strength,
in other words, every time that a fresh cocoon is needed; (3)
electromagnets with the necessary conducting wires; (4) the feeding
basin; (5) distributing finger and stops; and (6) the lance-bout.
Our illustration, Fig. 1, shows diagrammatically a section through the
cocoon frame and reel. The thread is composed of three, four, or more
filaments, and after passing through the lance-bout, it travels as
shown by the arrows. At first it is wound round itself about two
hundred times, then passed over a fixed guide pulley, and over a
second guide pulley lower down fixed to the frames which carry the
lance-bouts, then up through the twist and over the smaller of the
pulleys, D. Taking one complete turn, it is led round the guide
pulley, L, from there round the larger of the pulleys, D, round the
second guide pulley, L¹, then back to the large wheel, and over a
fixed guide pulley across to the reeling frame. Power is supplied to
the latter by means of a friction clutch, and to insure even winding
the usual reciprocating motion of a guide is employed. The measuring
apparatus is pivoted at F, and by raising or lowering the nuts at the
end of the bar the required inclination is given.
We had recently an opportunity of examining the whole of this
machinery in detail, and seeing the process of silk reeling in actual
operation, Mr. Serrell having put up a complete set of his machines in
Queen Victoria Street, London. Regarded simply as a piece of ingenious
mechanism, the performance of these machines cannot fail to be of the
highest interest to engineers, the reeling machine proper seeming
almost endowed with human intelligence, so perfectly does it work.
But, apart from the technical perfection, Mr. Serrell's improvements
are of great importance as calculated to introduce the silk-reeling
industry in this country on a large scale, while at the same time its
effect upon India as a silk-growing country will be of equal
importance.--_Industries._
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APPARATUS USED FOR MAKING ALCOHOL FOR HOSPITAL USE DURING THE
CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read at the Cincinnati meeting of the American
Pharmaceutical Association.]
By CHARLES K. GALLAGHER, Washington, N.C.
A is an ordinary farm boiler or kettle, with an iron lid securely
bolted on; B, a steam pipe ending in a coil within a trough, D. C, D,
two troughs made of gum logs, one inverted over the other, securely
luted and fastened together by clamps and wedges. The "beer" to be
distilled was introduced at E and the opening closed with a plug. The
distillate--"low wine"--was collected at F, and redistilled from a set
of similar troughs not shown in above figure, and heated by a
continuation of the steam coil from D.
[Illustration]
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CONFEDERATE APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING SALTPETER FOR
AMMUNITION.
By CHARLES K. GALLAGHER, Washington, N.C.
Any convenient number of percolators, made of rough boards, arranged
over a trough after the style of the old fashioned "lye stand,"
similar to the figure. Into these was placed the earth scraped from
around old tobacco barns, from under kitchens and smokehouses. Then
water or water and urine was poured upon it until the mass was
thoroughly leached or exhausted. The percolate was collected in a
receptacle and evaporated, the salt redissolved, filtered, again
evaporated, and crystallized from the mother water.
[Illustration]
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