Page 9

Original Papers: Recent Improvements in Woollen Cloths. 
RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN WOOLLEN CLOTHS. 
(POWELL'S BiUNQUE CLOT!!.) 
IN all the vast improvements which have been made in the machines used 
for the manufacture of woven fabrics, from the first preparation of the raw
material to its ultimate finish after it has passed from the loom, there
is not 
a single important deviation from the simple principles of the rudest process
of which we have any traces from antiquity. Whilst this may be said truly,
even of the most complicated and beautiful machinery which the ingenuity
of this country, more than any other, has introduced into the various opera-
tions which the fleece, the fibre, or the down, must undergo before it reaches
the hands of the weaver, at the same time the truth of the paradox is most
complete and remarkable in the case of the loom itself. In carding, combing,
spinning, throwing, and warping the beautiful, in some instances the wonder-
ful contrivances by which British invention especially has superseded the
labour of man's hand, and to some extent the working of his mind, are in
reality but improved modes of applying old principles, or modifications of
the 
primitive handicraft. But they effect, however (by means almost identical),
stly increased rapidity, vastly multiplied quantity, and most varied quality.
e card, the spindie, the bobbin, and the reel, are practically the same as
ever, but the various and intricate substitutes by which  they are put in
motion 
give a totally new character to the operations, and in some degree may be
VOL, v.     ne                                                 C