HECKLES, or HACKLES, and GILLS. These are very important parts of various machines, employed in the preparation of animal and vegetable fibers for spinning. They consist of a series of long metallic teeth, through which the material is drawn, so that the fibers may be combed out straight, and so fitted for the subsequent operations. The manufacture of heckles and gills involves great care and nicety, as any imperfection may cause great loss, by damaging the fiber which passes through them. For flax, hemp, jute, and similar large and coarse fibers, the teeth of the heckles are large, being about eight inches long, and made of steel wire one-fourth of an inch in diameter. This is gradually reduced from the base upwards, until it ends in a tine point. The whole is beautifully polished, so as to prevent injurious friction. They arc axed in a wooden or metallic base, in several rows, alternating with each other at short distances apart, in heckles; but in gills the teeth are much finer, resembling needles, and fewer in number, being placed usually in two rows; they constitute a part of the spinning machinery. The manufacture of these articles is a special trade; the manufacturers are called heck makers.
a thriving manufacturing village of England, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, is situated on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, 3 in. n.w. of Dew:, bury, and 10 m. s.w. of Leeds. It is the chief seat of the carpet and blanket trades in the West. Riding. Pop, '71, 8,300.
IiEVLA, or HERTA, a volcanic mountain in Iceland, is of a conical shape, and stands isolated about 20 m. from the s.w. coast. Its snow-clad summit is 5,110 ft. high. The principal crater, when visited by sir George Mackenzie, was about 100 ft. deep. and
contained a large quantity of snow in the bottom. There are many small secondary craters near the summit. The sides of the mountain are broken by numerous deep ravines, forming channels for mountain torrents that are produced by the melting of the snow. The principal rocks are lava and basalt, covered with the loose stones. scoriae, and ashes ejected from the volcano. The view from the summit is very deso late and wild. "Fantastic groups of hills, craters, and lava, leading the eye to distant snow-covered jokals; the mist rising from a waterfall ; lakes embosomed amid bare, bleak mountains; an awful and profound slumber; lowering clouds; marks all around of the furious action of the most destructive of the elements, give to the region a character of desolation scarcely to be paralleled." A record of the eruptions has been kept since the 10th century. They are few in number, only 43, but they have been always very violent., and generally continuing for a considerable time • Ode Of ;the Most tremendous occurred in 1783, when the immense quantity of lava and ashes ejected laid waste a large extent of country. The internal fire remained, as if exhausted, in a quiescent state till Sept., 1845, when with terrific energy it again burst forth, and continued active for more than a year. At this time it poured out a torrent of lava, which at tile distance of two miles from the crater was one mile wide, and from 40 to 50 ft. deep. A fine dust from this eruption was scattered over the Orkney islands, a distance of 400 miles from Hecla.