SPINNING is the art of combining animal and vegetable fibers into continuous threads fit for the processes of weaving, sewing, or The most primitive spinning apparatus is the spindle and distaff, representations of whichare to be seen on the earl iest. Egyptian monuments. The distaff was a stick or staff upon which a bundle of the prepared material was loosely bound, and which was held in the left hand or stuck in the belt; the spindle was a smaller tapering piece to which the thread was attached. By a dexterous twirl of the hand the spindle was made to spin round and at the same time recede from the spinster, who drew out bet ween the forefinger and thumb of the right 'hand a regular stream of fibers so long as the twisting of the spindle lasted. It was then drawn in, the new length of thread wound upon it, and the operation was renewed. An obvious improvement on this was to set the spindle in a frame and make it revolve by a band passing over a wheel driven either by occasional impetus from the hand or by a treadle; this constituted the spinning-wheel, which is said to have been invented in Nuremberg as recently as 1530. In the spinning-wheel in its most improved form, and as usual for flax, a bobbin or " pirn," with a separate motion, was placed on the spindle which had a bent arm—a flyer or flight—for winding the yarn on the bobbin. The spindle and bobbin revolved at different rates, the revolutions of the spindle 'giving the twist, and the difference of the rate' causing the winding on. The two-handed wheel had two spindles and pirns a little apart, with the distaff or " rock" stuck into the frame between them, and the spinster produced a thread with each hand. The spinning of flax on such wheels for the manufacturer was an important branch of domestic industry in the northern counties of Scotland as late as 1830, if not later.
Neither the spinning-wheel nor the hand could spin more than one, or at most two threads at a time, and therefore, with the rapid increase of population, and the improve ments made in the process of weaving (q.v.). they became quite inadequate to supply the demand for yarn: but an accident, it is said, about the year 1764, led to an invention by which eight threads could be spun at once; and this was soon improved upon until 80 could be produced as easily. This was the invention of the spinning-jenny for cotton spinning, by James Hargreaves, at Stankhill, near Blackburn in Lancashire. In this machine, a number of large reels of cotton formed into a thickish coil, called a roving, were set on upright fixed spindles, and the ends of the rovings were passed between two small movable bars of wood placed horizontally and under the control of the spinner, ,who could thus make them press.more or less on the roving, and consequently increase or decrease the draw upon it from the spinning spindles, which were set in a row at the other end of the frame, and all capable of being set in motion simultaneously by the wheel The success of the spinning-jenny was considerable, but its history has been too often told to be required here: and even previous to its invention, a better idea had been started and acted upon by others, and was afterward brought to such perfection, that the invention of Hargreaves soon passed into obscurity.
In order to understand the operations of spinning as now practiced, and as improved by the invention alluded to, it is desirable, in this place, to say a few words upon the preparation of the fibers for the process of spinning. In the first place, if wool or cot ton, it has to be "opened;" that is, it must ho relieved from its original knotted and lump con dition; this was formerly done by hand, but is now easily managed by machines called " wil lows or willeys," " blowers" and " openerS." By the first of these, which consists of a drum covered with small spikes moving in O hollow cylinder, also lined with spikes, but so arranged that those on the drum pass close to, but do not come into collision with them as it revolves, the cotton or wool is fed in on one side, is dragged forward by catching on the spikes, and is deliv ered at an opposite opening to that by which it entered, in a loose state and free from knots. It is not, however, quite loose enough for the sub sequent operations, and it is more or less min gled with impurities. It is therefore taken to the "blower" or "opener," and being put into a shaft, is there acted upon by a stream of air violently driven in by machinery, which blows it forward, removes extraneous matters, and so separates the fibers that they pass out at the other end in an exceedingly light flocculent state, and ready for being formed into laps. This operation consists in laying the material very equally on an endless apron made of small bars of wood, and of the width of the frame of the machine in which they are placed. This; apron (a, fig. 1) passes round two rollers, placed at a little distance apart. as in fig. 1. b, c, the rollers being moved by machinery. The arrows indicate the direction in which the apron moves; and as the operator covers its entire surface with a thin layer of the fiber, it passes under under the roller d, and is'taken on to the roller e,.in the form of a com pressed layer of cotton or wool, called a lap. When the roller e is full, it is removed, with its lap f, to make way for another. Much care is taken in weighing out and dis tributing the material of these laps, because upon this first operation the ultimate size of the yarn depends.