are nipped between the quickly-moving drawing rollers, the fibres
affected slide on those which have not yet reached the drawing
rollers, and, incidentally, help to parallelize the fibres. It will
be clear that if any fibre happened to be in the grip of the two
pairs of rollers having different surface speeds, such fibre would be
snapped. It is to avoid this rupture of fibres that the distance
between the two sets of rollers is greater than the longest fibres
under treatment. The technical word for this distance is "reach."

On emerging from the drawing rollers, the combed slivers pass
between slicking rollers, and then approach the sliver plate which
bridges the gap between the slicking rollers and the delivery rollers,
and by means of which plate two or more individual slivers are
diverted at right angles, first to join each other, and then again
diverted at right angles to join another sliver which passes
straight from the drawing rollers and over the sliver plate to the
guide of the delivery rollers. It will thus be seen that a number of
slivers, each having been drawn out according to the degree of draft,
are ultimately joined to pass through a common sliver guide or
conductor to the nip of the delivery rollers, and thence into a
sliver can.

The push-bar drawing illustrated in Fig. 17, or some other of the
same type, is often used as the first drawing frame in a set. With
the exception of the driving pulleys, all the gear wheels are at the
far end of the frame, and totally enclosed in dust-proof casing. The
set-on handles, for moving the belt from the loose pulley to the
fast pulley, or _vice versa_, are conveniently situated, as shown,
and in a place which is calculated to offer the least obstruction to
the operative. The machines are made with what are known as