Jacquard to the invention of the draw-loom and the Jacquard apparatus mechanical weaving of figured stuffs was confined to simple patterns. The Jacquard machine (y51. 44, fig. 13) takes its name from its inventor, Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834), who in ISoi per fected the machine left by Jacques de Vaucanson (1709-1782). The prin ciple of the Jacquard apparatus was first employed in 1725 by Bouchon, who used a band of pierced paper pressed by a hand-bar against a row of horizontal wires, so as to push forward those that happened to lie opposite the blank spaces, thus forming loops at the lower extremity of vertical wires in connection with a comb-like rack below. In 1728, Falcon sub stituted a chain of card-boards in place of the band of paper of Bouchon, and employed a square prism, known as the "cylinder." In 1745, Vaucan son dispensed with the cumbrous tail-cards of the draw-loom, and made . the loom self-acting by placing the pierced paper or card-board upon the surface of a large perforated cylinder, which travelled backward and for ward at each stroke and revolved through a small angle by ratchet-work. He also devised the rising and falling griffc, and thus produced a machine closely the actual Jacquard. His machine, however, remained
incomplete and lacked the simplicity requisite for general use. In iSot, Jacquard, who after many vicissitudes had attracted public attention by a medal for an invention in textile machinery at the industrial exhibition in Paris, was called by Napoleon and his minister, Carnot, to a position in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, where he found the Vaucanson machine whose mechanism suggested the improvements which finally were developed by Jacquard to their present form (p. 153). The opposition to the introduction of the Jacquard machine was so violent that the inventor was several times attacked by a mob and barely escaped with his life. The Conseil des Prudhommes, who were appointed to watch over the interests of the Lyonnese trade, so completely entered into the feeling which prompted this opposition that they broke up his model in the public square. The invention, however, was not lost; the machine was constructed elsewhere, and gradually made its way into England and France. After sonic years had passed it proved of great practical value, and in 1840, on the spot where the model was destroyed, a statue of Jacquard was erected.