VELVET, a variety of manufactured silk, remarkable for the soft ness of its surface. Velvet was unknown at least several centuries after the introduction of plain woven silks; and it is not mentioned in any documents earlier than the 13th century. For a long time the manufacture was confined to Italy, where, particularly in Genoa, Florence, Milan, Lueei, and Venice, it was carried on to a great extent. It was subsequently introduced into France. and brought to great per fection. On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, this branch of weaving was begun in England by the refugees.
The peculiar softness of velvet is owing to a loose pile or surface of threads, occasioned by the insertion of short pieces of silk thread doubled under the shoot, weft, or cross threads. These stand upright ao thickly as entirely to conceal the interlacing of the warp and shoot. The richness of the velvet depends upon the closeness of the pile threads. The insertion of these short threads is effected in the follow ing manner :—lnstead of having only one row of warp-threads, which will be crossed alternately over and under by the shoot, there are two seta, one of which is to form the regular warp, while the other is to constitute the pile; and these two seta are so arranged in the loom as to be kept separate. The quantity of the pile-thread necessary is very much more than that of the warp-thread; and, therefore, must be supplied to the loom by a different agency. if the pile-threads were worked in among the shoot in the same way as the warp-threads, the fabric would be simply a kind of double silk, but without any pile. The pile-threade are, therefore, formed into a series of loops, standing up from the surface of the silk, and by subsequently cutting these loops with a sharp instrument, the pile is produced. 'the loops are formed in a very singular way. After the weaver has thrown the shuttle three times across, making the shoot interlace three time, among the threada of the warp, he inserts a thin straight brass wire at right angles to the length of the piece, or parallel with the shoot. The wire is so placed as to occupy a position through the whole breadth of the fabric, above the warp-threads and below the pile-threads. The treadle is then put to work, the alternate threads of the warp raised, and the shuttle again thrown; by which a shoot-thread is thrown orer the pile-threads, and also over one-half of the warp-threads • the wire becomes thus, as it were, woven into the substance of the fabric. Two more traverses of the shoot are then made, passing alternately under and over the warp threads in the usual way, but not interfering with the pile-threads. Another wire is then laid in, below all the pile-threads and above all the warp-threads, and this is secured by subsequent shoot-threads, as in the first case. By a delicate and
difficult process, these wires are removed by the same operation which produces the raised pile. Each wire is nearly a semieylinder in form, and has along its upper surface a carefully constructed groove; along this groove the weaver passes the sharp edge of a cutting instrument called a trevat, severing the pile-threads in his progress. It necessarily followa from this operation that two ends of each thread are thus loosened; and these ends, being after wards brushed up and dressed, constitute a portion of the pile, suffi ciently long to hide completely the woven fabric beneath. Two wires are employed, because if one only were used, the pile-threads would become disarranged when it was removed. When tho liberated wire has been again inaerted, and three shoots thrown to secure it, the second line of loops is cut and the second wire removed ; and so on during the weaving of the whole length.
Striped velvets are produced by some of the pile-threads being uncut. The alownee.s and delicacy of this branch of manufacture may be judged from the fact that forty or fifty inaertions of the grooved wire are made in the space of une inch, the loops of the pile being cut an equal number of times. In addition to the other complications, the weaver has to use two shoot-threada, and consequently two shuttles; for the shoot thrown immediately after the insertion of the wire is stouter than the two following. It is conaidered to amount to a good day's work when one yard of plain velvet has been woven. Cotton ie now employed, as well as silk, in the manufacture of velvet. The different varieties of fustian are a kind of cotton-velvet.
Ambng recent inventions in the velvet manufacture, one, by Mr. Gratrix, is applicable to velvets in which the pile is produced by the weft, and the cut made in the direction of the warp. The pile-threads are woven on a series of fine longitudinal knives with elongated points. The knives are stationary, and have their cutting ends attached to a bedding-frame. Simultaneously with the weaving, the portions of weft intended to form the pile slide consecutively upon the points of the knives as the cloth is woven ; and the weft, when it arrives at the cutting portions of the knives, is severed. Another arrangement, by the same inventor, is for severing the pile without cutting at all. Wires are woven In with the threads, so as to leave the pile above them ; they pass between twos peculiarly-formed rollers, which press open the fibres over each wire, and thus liberate all the wires. Some of the processes recently introduced enable the weaver to cut and emboss the velvet at the same time.