The modern power-ioom is a strong iron frame, at the back of which is the horizontal beam or roller from which the warp unwinds, and at the front the roller on which the web is wound as it is made. Between the two is the harness which is a series of frames with eyelets, one for every thread, or set of threads, of the warp. In plain or taffeta weaving the harness frames are in two sets of three frames each, one set of which is tip while the other is down. The number can be increased to sev eral frames, all acting independent of each other, for complicated patterns. Between the beam and the harness is the reed, through which the warp threads pass to the take-up roller in front of the loom and between the harness and the web roller, the shuttle and the batten. As the machine revolves the warp threads passing from the beam through the reed, are lifted or depressed by the harness; in the opening made by such lifting or depressing, the shuttle flies across the warp and the batten beats up the thread it leaves and a new woof is added to the fabric. The complications of the fabric reveal themselves as soon as the power is turned on and the actual web begins to appear, close, compact and delicate.
Fancy weaves and patterns necessitating different colors are often woven on what is known as a box-loom. Fabrics vary from single colors to eight colors or more in the filling. This necessitates tip to eight or more different shuttles being used for the filling. The con tainers for these shuttles on the loom are known as boxes, hence the term box-loom. In order to form complicated designs, individual warp threads of the loom were in olden times con trolled by hand, the threads being lifted or depressed thus letting the shuttle pass over or under them, forming the weave. This method is still pursued in the making of the famous Goblin tapestry and Is probably the best illustra tion of old-time weaving. Joseph Marie Jac quard, born in Lyons, France, in 1752, is the inventor of a mechanical device to lift or de press warp threads in making fancy designs, thus doing away with hand manipulation. This is known as the Jacquard machine and when placed on a loom the loom is called a Jacquard loom.
The finished fabric after leaving the loom is inspected for weaving defects, such as loose ends, knots, etc., and is ready to receive its final manipulation before passing into the hands of the consumer. If silk used in manufacture has been dyed before being woven the fabric after leaving the loom need receive but little handling. It is smoothed out on rollers and may or may not receive a certain amount of stiffening. If the article is woven in the gray, it must now be dyed or printed before being used.
Such in brief is the manufacture of broad silks, that is dress goods, tie silks, shirtings, etc. In 1914 the census reports show a pro duction of over 216,000,000 yards of these goods valued at over $137,000,000. Silk ribbons are made in a similar manner, except that on ac count of their narrowness many ribbons may be woven at one time on the same loom, ac cording to their width. The 1914 production of ribbons was valued at over $38,000,000.
Crepe effects in the finished goods are pro duced by alternating a right- and left-hand highly-twisted thread in the warp and filling the fabric with a lightly-twisted tram. When the woven goods are boiled off and dyed the effect of the alternately-twisted threads will be a puckering up of the fabric and this is known as crepe-de-chine. Similar effects may he produced by running a plain warp and filling this warp with the alternately hard-twisted crepe threads. This necessitates a box-loom. But the warping for this second fabric is very much easier than the warping for the first. To avoid mistakes in handling the wrong threads, a slightly different tint, such as light blue and pink, is given to the right- and left-hand twisted threads. Hard-twisted threads in both warp and filling produce the georgette crepes.
Silk velvets and plush fabrics were formerly woven over wires so that small loops were formed on the face of the cloth which, upon being cut, made the pile. In modern manufac
ture two pieces are woven face to face, a sharp knife traveling between them cutting the pile threads apart. Velvets valued at $8,000,000 and plushes at $10,000,000 were produced in 1914.
Sewing silks and machine .silks are tightly twisted threads of raw silk, while floss and embroidery silks are loosely-twisted threads of raw silk. The production of these materials in 1914 was one and one-half million pounds, valued at nine and one-half million dollars.
The tables that follow indicate the growth of the silk industry in the United States: 3. Foreign Silk In the opening decades of the 9th century the chief silk-pro ducing regions were Syria, Persia, India, Italy and France. With the opening of trade with China in the middle of the century great auan tities of silk began to arrive in the markets of the world from Shanghai and later from Canton. Japan came into the field as an exporter about 1857 and was soon a serious competitor be cause of the high quality of its product. To day China and Japan export only their excess growth of silk, as the great bulk of their native silks are woven .and sold in the home market. The same is to a large degree true of other silk-producing countries and regions of Asia. Within the last half-century the world's silk pro duction (calculating only exports from the East, the total production there being unknown) has more than doubled. America is at present the greatest consumer of raw silk, followed at con siderable distance by France. Lyons is the cen tre of the silk trade of France, producing chiefly dress goods. The chief centres of the ribbon trade are Saint Etienne and Saint Chamond. In addition to these there are large 1890. The consumption of ra-J snaterial in nor mal years is 3,250,000 pounds. The Caucasus supplies about 1,000,000 pounds of raw silk to the Russian mills, Moscow is the chief silk-manufacturing centre. Italy, once first in the trade of Europe has fallen to about sixth place as a manufacturing country, using only 2,000,00C pounds annually. As a producer of raw silk of fine quality it still holds a high place, producing about 10,000,000 pounds in normal years. Como, Genoa and Venice are still the chief seats of silk manufactures in Italy. Austria has important silk manufactures, mostly centred in Vienna; it consumes about 1,500,000 pounds of raw silk annually and pro duces about 500,000 pounds of this amount. Hungary produces nearly 1,000,000 pounds an nually, most of which was formerly exported to the mills of Austria. England's silk manu factures have declined since 1860. Manchester, Macclesfield, Middleton, London and Notting ham are the chief' centres of the industry there, which consumes annually about 1,700,000 pounds of raw silk. The following table gives the production of raw silk in 1913-19: silk mills at Paris, Nimes, Calais, Avignon, Roubaix and Tours. France consumes in nor mal years about 10,000,000 pounds of raw silk and produces less than one-fifth of this amount. Germany consumes about 7,000,000 pounds an nually. The industry there is centred at Cre feld. Velvet is the principal textile product of the German silk industry, occupying over half the entire number of looms. Other silk manu factures are located at Barmen, Elberfeld and Muhlheim. Switzerland has an important silk trade, consuming about 4,000,000 pounds an nually in normal years. Zurich produces satins, serges and 'other broad goods. Basel is an important centre of the silk ribbon trade. Silk manufacture received a great impetus in Russia by the enactment of a prohibitive tariff about Coles, 'Ornament in Euro pean Silks' (London 1899) ; Kelly, 'Culture of Mulberry Silkworm' (Bulletin 39, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington 1903) ,• Matthews, J. M., 'Textile Fibres' (3d ed., New York 1913) ; Sadtler, S. P., book of Industrial Organic Chemistry' (Phila delphia 1912) ; Villon, (La Soie' (Paris 1890) ; Verson and Quajat, 'II filugello e l'arte seri cola' (Padua 1896).