JACQUARD LOOM. The Jacquard Loom, or more correctly Jacquard appendage to the loom, is the most beautiful of all contrivances connected with weaving. We will say a few words of the inventor and of the machine. Joseph Mario Jacquard was born at Lyon in 1752, of humble parents, both of whom were employed in operations connected with weaving. His parents died, leaving him a small property, which he employed in the at. tempt to establish a business in the weaving of figured fabrics. The undertaking failed, and he was compelled to sell his looms in order to pay his debts. He subsequently mar ried, and occupied himself with ingenious schemes for improvements in weaving, cutlery, and type-founding, which produced nothing for tho support of his family. In 1792 lie assisted in the defence of Lyon against the army of the Convention. Being denounced after the reduction of Lyon, he was compelled to fly. When ho was enabled to return, and Lyon began to rise from its ruins, Jacquard applied himself with renewed energy to the perfection of the beautiful apparatus for figured weaving which bears his name. He had con ceived the idea of such an apparatus as early as 1790, and he now succeeded, though but imperfectly, in accomplishing his end. His machine was presented, in September 1801, to the national exposition of the products of industry, the jury of which awarded him a bronze medal for its invention. In the same year be obtained a patent, or 'brevet dinven bon,' for a term of ten years. About the same time his attention was accidentally ti tected to the construction of a machine for weaving nets for fishing and maritime purposes. He accom plished the desired object, but, having amused himself and his friends with his contrivance, ho threw it aside. His machine-made net however fell into the hands of the prefet at Lyon, and the result was that, according to the arbitrary fashion of the time, he and his machine were placed under arrest and con veyed to Paris, where the invention was sub mitted to inspectors, amongst whom were Napoleon and Carnot, and a gold medal was awarded to him in February 1804. In 1804 Jacquard returned to Lyon, where be Ives long engaged in superintending the introduction of his inventions for figured weaving and for making nets, in which he was powerfully aided by Camille Pernon, a rich manufac turer. For some years Jacquard had to struggle against much opposition and prejudice on the part of the Lyonese weavers ; but before his death, in 1834, he had the pleasure of knowing that his ingenious invention had become ex tensively employed.
The apparatus which cost Jacquard so much thought and anxiety is intended to facilitate the weaving of figured patterns on cloth of any kind. In plain weaving the weft or cross threads pass alternately under and over the warp threads, forming a perfectly regular in terlacing ; but in pattern or figure weaving, the device is made by irregularities in these alternations ; sometimes two or more threads are crossed over at one time, without any in termediate under-crossing. When the shuttle with the weft thread has to be thrown from edge to edge of the warp or web, some of the warp threads have to be lifted up to allow it to pass ; and the Jacquard apparatus assists in this elevation, which depends (in every throw of the shuttle) on the pattern to be woven. There are numerous cards (as many as 500 for a complicated pattern), formed of paste board, and pierced with holes. Every card has a certain relation to one throw of the weft• thread ; and the number and arrangement of the holes determine which warp threads shall be drawn up to let the weft pass. The cards are linked into an endless chain, which is passed over a hollow box at the top of the loom. The chain is made to rotate slowly, one movement for every weft thread thrown ; and each card in turn acts upon a series of levers by which the warp threads are raised : the blank part of each card acts upon the levers ; while the perforated parts allow the levers to pass into the holes without being affected.
Mr. Mackenzie has recently patented a ma chine for punching the holes in the Jacquard cards. Hitherto this operation has required two workmen; one to read the pattern,' as it is termed, and one to arrange the punches ; but in Mr. Mackenzie's arrangement, the per son who reads off the pattern plays at the same time on a set of keys, each of which in serts a punch into its proper place.
An ingenious variation of the Jacquard ap paratus has lately been patented, in which the device is marked by pins on a rotating barrel, instead of by holes in a chain of cards. The principle is the same as that of the barrel organ and the musical snuff-box ; and there would seem to be no reason why it should not apply efficiently to the weaving appara tus.