It has been often said, and truly, that the bobbin-net machine is one of the most complicated which the ingenuity of man has ever devised ; and it may there fore well be supposed that nothing more than the bare principle can be here ex hibited. Perhaps it may assist the reader we carry out our former supposition a little further. Let a series of strings be suspended from the ceiling in the two rows, with the lower ends of each row fastened to a horizontal bar : and let a number of small pendulums be suspended between the stnngs, and enabled to os cillate to and fro between them. Then, if after each traverse of the pendulums between the stretched threads, the rows, one or both, of threads be shifted a little on one side, so that the pendulums may return through openings different from those which they before traversed, we should have a system of movements some what analog,ous to those in the machine ; and the strings by which the pendulums were suspended would be found to twist round the stretched vertical strings. If we further suppose that each row of strings is capable of being shifted inde pendent of the other, and that the pendulum strings be fastened to a shift ing bar near the ceiling, we might imitate in a rough way the series of movements by which net is made.
Not only is plain net made by these movements of the machine, but figured net also. In plain nets, all the bobbins are moved similarly at the one time ; but in fancy nets, some are stationary, some pass between the warp threads, some are shifted laterally to the distance of one mesh, some to the distance of two or three meshes, some move to the right and some to the left. The warp-threads
instead of being divided into two parcels, are divided into several, each of which is susceptible of the lateral movement in dependent of the others ; it is by modi fications of these lateral movements that all the numerous varieties of machine made lace or net are produced.
A rack of lace is a certain length of work counted perpendicularly, and con tains 240 meshes or holes. In perfect lace the mesh is elongated a little in the direction of the selvage. The price of labor in making a rack 20 years ago was $1, it is now made for two cents; so great has been the improvement and economy in the manufacture, and this reduction of cost illustrates well the great capabilities of machinery. In Mr. Waterhouse's (of England) machine for manufacturing mechlin-lace, the number of warp-threads in the width alone is 4,700, and a corres ponding number of bobbins or weft threads are required, making a total of 9,400 threads : which represents the same number of bobbins, and are all kept in motion at the same time. In making pillow lace it requires as many hands as there are bobbins : for on the cushion one hand must wait for the other in order to obtain the register crossings of the threads. Some idea may be formed of the intricacy of the machinery and the ingenuity displayed in the arrangement. Some of the specimens woven by the machine were 26 yards long and 4 yards wide, and had 4 patterns woven in it. The number of motions or throws that would he required to produce a similar piece of lace by hand would amount to not less than 2,111,616,000.