SPINNING (front spin, from AS.. Oath.. OHG. spinnan, Ger. spinnen, to spin; probably connected with AS., 0110. spannan, Ger. spanner, Eng. span, to stretch out, extend, and ultimately with Lat. spatilim, extent, Gk. ariiv, span, to draw out). The art of drawing, twisting, and combining either animal or vegetable fibres, so that they are formed into continuous threads ready for the further operations of weaving, knit ting, or sewing. The principal textile fibres are silk, wool, flax, jute, and cotton (qq.v.), and the method of spinning each of these substances differs slightly from the rest.
The most ancient instruments for spinning were the spindle and distaff, representations of which are to be seen on the earliest Egyptian monuments. The distaff was a stick or staff upon which a bundle of the prepared material was loosely bound, and which was held in the left hand or stuck in the belt; the spindle was a smaller tapering piece to which the thread was attached. By a dexterous twirl of the hand the spindle was made to spin round and at the same time recede from the spinster, who drew out be tween the forefinger and thumb of the right hand a regular stream of fibres so long as the twisting of the spindle lasted. It was then drawn in, the new length of thread wound upon it, and the operation renewed. An obvious im provement in this device was to set the spindle in a frame and make it revolve by a band passing over a wheel, driven by occasional impetus from the hand.
The Saxon wheel is said to have been invented in Nuremberg in 1330. This wheel, used only fir flax-spinning, contained the germ of Arkwright's invention, described later on. A bobbin or 'pint' with a separate motion was placed on the spindle, which had a bent arm—a flyer or flight—for winding the yarn on the bobbin. The spindle and bobbin revolved at different speeds, the revo lutions of the spindle giving the twist, and the' difference of the speed causing the winding on. The two-handed wheel had two spindles and pints a little apart. with the distaff stuck into the frame between them, and the spinster produced a thread with each hand.
During the last half of the eighteenth century three inventions were made which completely revolutionized the art of spinning. These three inventions were Hargreaves's spinning jenny, Ark wright's throstle machine or roll-drawing spin ning machine, and Crompton's mule spinner.
In the spinning jenny a number of large reels of fibre formed into a thickish coil, called a roving, were set on upright fixed spindles. and the ends of the ravings were passed between two small movable bars of wood placed horizontally and under the control of the spinner, who could thus make them press more or less on the roving, and consequently increase or decrease the draw upon it from the spinning spindles, which were set in a row at the other end of the frame. and
all capable of being set in motion simultaneously h the wheel. The spinner drew out the ravings by moving the bars back and forth and at the same time turned the crank with his right hand to rotate the spindles.
The throstle machine, patented by Arkwright in 1769, had for its object the drawing of the ravings through a succession of pairs of rollers. each pair in advance of the others, and moving at different rates of speed. The first pair receive the sliver, compress it, and pass it on to the sec ond pair. which revolve at a greater speed. and thus pull it out to exactly the number of times greater length that their revolutions exceed those of the other pair, and as the first roving is passed though a second, third, and sometimes fourth ma chine, the finished roving is 32 times longer than the sliver. As the roving issues through the last rollers of each machine it is received on spools or reels, calculated to hold a given quan tity; and these are transferred to the spinning frames, which resemble the roving frames. Here the roving takes the place of the sliver, and, as it unwinds from the spool, is drawn through suc cessive pairs of rollers, moving as before at differ ent rates, each succeeding pair faster than the backward ones. so that the roving gets thinner and thinner, until the tennity is carried as far as is fed to it in a hopper or by some kind of au tomatic feed, and delivered in laps which are then placed on the intermediate hipper, either 3 or 4 laps being 'doubled' on the same and the cot ton after being loosened and further cleaned is delivered in laps to be placed on the finisher lapper. 3 or 4 laps from the intermediate being again 'doubled' and delivered in a single lap ready for the card. The function of the lappers is to thoroughly loosen the lumps of cotton as taken from the hale, to remove dirt and dust and as much leaf, trash, and motes as possible. There are usually three of these, the breaker, in termediate, and finisher lapper. Fig. I is a sec tion of an intermediate or finisher lapper. The desirable. It is then carried on to a spindle which revolves with great rapidity, and, by means of a simple arrangement, is made both to twist the thread and wind it on The spindle ready for the weaver.