CARCASSONE, anciently CARCASO, the capital of the department of the A ode, is situated upon the canal of Lam;tiectoc, and also upon the river Aude, which di vides the town into two parts, called the Upper and the Lower Town, both of which are surrounded with a wall. The upper town, which is situated upon an eminence, is called the City, and, besides the cathedral, contains a castle, which is very strong, and commands the whole town. in this castle are kept the ancient records, which are written upon the bark of trees. The lower town, which is almost square, consists of streets intersecting each other at right angles, and leading to a large square in the centre, which is ornamented with a fountain of rockwork, surmounted by a figure of Neptune. The quays, which are adorned with rows of trees, form agree able promenades.
From Carcassone strangers generally go to Barbayrac, on the road to Trebes, to see the Languedoc canal pass over an aqueduct bridge across the river Orbe.
In this town, the manufacture of drabs of all kinds is carried on to a very considerable extent. They are made of the wool of Bezieres, Narbonne, and Spain, and are sold at Lyons, Bourdeaux, Thoulouse, and other towns of France. The quantity which is annually sent -off amounts to about 16,000 pieces. The inhabitants of the town and the adjacent country are employed in carding, spinning, and preparing the wool , and such is the indus try of the people, that a beggar is not to he seen in the country. The inhabitants of the six villages which com pose the district of Graissesac, some leagues from Car cassone, are employed in fabricating copper goods. Po pulation 15,300. E. Long. 2° 5', N. Eat. 43° 11'. See Thstoirc de Carcassone, par Pere Bouges. (o) (mins, in the manufactures of cotton and wool, are in struments used Ivor preparing the fibres of those sub stances lot• spinning them into thread, by straightening the fibres, and reiahning tin in parallel to each other, so that each may hav• its full bearing and proper ten sion, when a number are twisted together to form a tin cad.
The card is a kind of brush made with 11 ices instead of hair, stuck thiough a sheet of leather, the wires not being perpendicular to the plane of the leather, but all inclining one way at a ct rtain angle.
From this description, such us are totally unacquaint ed with the subject may conceive, that cotton, being stuck upon one of these cards, or brushes, may scraped with another card, in such a direction, that Ole inclination of the wire may tend to throw the cotton in wards, rather than suffer it to come out. The conse quence of the repeated strokes of the empty card against the full one, must be a distribution or the cotton more evenly on the stirlace; and if one be then drawn in the opposite direction across the other, it will, by Nirtue, of the inclination of its wires, take the whole of the cotton from that card whose inclination is in the contrary direc tion.
In this way the operation of carding was formerly performed by the hand, with sheets of card nailed upon thin hoards, which were drawn and scraped against each other till the cotton or wool was evenly diffused over the surface, and freed from all the knotty or entangled parts. One of the cards being then turned, and applied in an inclined position, so as to scrape with one edge over the surface of the other card, in the direction of its teeth, the cotton was, by a particular manceuvre, stripped off, and coiled up into those short soft rolls, which were called Cardings, and were afterwards ex tended and twisted by the spinning wheel.
Such, in all probability, was the process employed, with little alteration, during the five last centuries, in the woollen manufacture of this kingdom, and applied, at subsequent periods, to the preparation of cotton. The use of cards was most likely derived from the Netherlands, at or before the time that our woollen manufactures Were improved by the emigration of Fle mish weavers to this country during- the reign of Ed ward Ill.