JACQUARD' LOOM, a loom fitted with the Jacquard apparatus for the purpose of pattern-weaving. This apparatus was the invention of M, Joseph Marie Jacquard, an ingenious Frenchman, a native of Lyons, who, being necessitated to carry on the weav ing business of his father, for which he had a distaste, and, according to some accounts, still further stimulated by reading an account in an English newspaper of the offer of a premium for any person who should invent a machine for weaving nets, set hiS wits to work to improve the existing machinery for weaving. By his invention he enabled an ordinary workman, with comparative ease, to produce the most beautiful patterns in a style which had only previously been accomplished with almost incredible patience, skill, and labor. Nevertheless, the reception of his great invention by the public was most dispiriting, for although rewarded with a small pension by Napoleon, time silk weavers themselves offered such violent opposition to its introduction that on one occa sion he narrowly escaped with his life, and his machine was broken up by the body of men who, under the title of the conseil des prud'hommes, were appointed to watch over the interests of the Lyonnese traders. and it was destroyed in the public square of Lyons. To use Jacquard's own language: "The iron was sold for iron, the wood for wood. and he himself was delivered over to universal ignominy:" nevertheless, on that same spot where the machine was publicly destroyed, a statue now stands, to show the grati tude of a more enlightened generation, Even after the partial adoption of his machine, which was patented, Jacquard had numberless annoyances to contend with; the workmen, as usual, opposed ignorant prejudice to its progress, and their masters, little better, took it up so lukewarmly that it failed in many instances, and actions were entered against the patentee fOr injury done to material, etc, The value of the invention was, however, too great to admit of its being long suppressed, and when its value was once fairly recognized, it effected a complete revolution in the art of weaving, especially in the finer kinds of figured silk fabrics.
The Jacquard apparatus can be adjusted to almost every kind of loom, its office being merely to direct those movements bf tile warp threads which are required to pro duce the pattern, and which previously were effected by the weaver's fingers; its arrangements generally are very complicated, but its principles are remarkable for their extreme simplicity and certainty.
In ordinary weaving the alternate threads of the warp, or longitudinal arrangement, are raised so as to enable the weaver to throw the shuttle containing the weft thread transversely across from his right to his left hand between the warp threads so raised and those left at rest. When the weft is so passed through, the raised warp threads are lowered, and the other set raised, the shuttle being then passsed through from left to right. This is the most simple idea of plaiting or weaving. If, however, a pattern has to be produced either in plain materials or varied colors, it is necessary, instead of rais ing and depressing the whole threads of the warp, in two sets, as above described, to raise only such as are required to develop the various parts of the figure, and this, of course, must be clone with great exactness, as the position of every thread tells upon the formation of the pattern. The apparatus of Jacquard is for the purpose of regu lating these movements, and its mode of action is as follows: The warp threads are each (as in the common weaving process) passed through a small loop in the lifting thread, so as to be raised by means of the treadles, which act directly upon the lifting bars; these lifting threads (i, s) are attached to certain wires in the Jacquard apparatus, which form a rigid continuation ending in a A hook, _ ook, which, when nothing interferes, is caught and raised by each upward motion of the lifting bar; thus, A is the lifting bar, and it has five projections (1c,1r,k,k,k), upon which the hooks of the wires catch when in a straight position, as at B, B, but which miss them if they be thrown out of the perpendicular, as at C, C, C. There are only live of these wires given, p to prevent confusion, but practically there must be one for every thread of the warp—that is, one for every thread in the width of the cloth to be woven. Each of the lifting wires passes through a hori- L zottal needle placed at right angles,