Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

324 BRITAIN AT WORK. SHED WITH BRUSSELS LOOMS (MESSRS. TEMPLETON AND CO,, GLASGOW). company. Scoured, sorted, opened out, lapped and carded, the warp and weft may run together; but the carded slivers of the worsted warp go into the combing machine, and the wool slivers are taken away to the drawing frames. Through a series of cylindrical combers the woolly slive destined for worsted warp is passed, and then on to the long series of spinning frames, drawers, slubbers, roving frames, and spinning mules, arriving in shape of yarn hanks for the scourer and dyer. Passing through their hands the worsted and wool weft suffer alike, and issue coloured according to design. The weft goes to the reelers to be wound straight on to the cops the weaver fills into his shuttle, while the warp must undergo another winding on to bobbins, and thence pass on to the warping flat, there to be wound in serried rows, giving up the thread to a long beam. At the weaver’s loom weft and warp again meet to combine in one fabric. In this loom the ex- perience of the weaver who has woven both cloth and carpet is curiously blended. The double loom, the Jacquard apparatus directing the two-sided pattern, the tiered shuttle slays —all suggest the weaving of some mighty giant's clothes. The patterns of Kiddermin- ster and Scotch carpets are varied and artistic, the Jacquard apparatus giving the designer as much scope as he can reasonably desire. The tapestry carpet is of British origin, being invented by Mr. Richard Whytock, of Edinburgh, about the year 1840. Many efforts had been made to produce a light kind of Brussels carpet, but the results were unsatisfactory, Most of the inventors who failed attempted modifications of the Brussels carpet loom, but Whytock boldly discarded the Brussels method. In Brussels carpets every colour in the pattern is represented by a thread running the whole length of the warp, the pattern being formed by the weaving. Mr. Whytock reversed the process, imprinted the pattern on the warp, allowing for the area taken up by looping up of the warp threads, and thus, with a single layer of wool on a linen foundation, made a light and artistic form of Brussels carpet. After the designing, the first important department in a tapestry carpet factory is the