The actual work of supplying the cocoons to the running thread is
performed as follows: The cleaned cocoons are put into what is called
the feeding basin, B1 (Fig. 1), a receptacle placed alongside of the
ordinary reeling basin, B, of a filature. A circular elevator, E, into
which the cocoons are charged by a slight current of water, lifts them
over one corner of the reeling basin and drops them one by one through
an aperture in a plate about six inches above the water of the reeling
basin.

The end of the filament having been attached to a peg above the
elevator, it happens that when a cocoon has been brought into the
corner of the reeling basin, the filament is strung from it to the
edge of the hole in the plate in such a position as to be readily
seized by a mechanical finger, K (Fig. 3), attached to a truck
arranged to run backward and forward along one side of the basin. This
finger is mounted on an axis, and has a tang projecting at right
angles to the side of the basin, so that the whole is in the form of a
bell crank mounted on the truck.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

There are usually four threads to each basin. When neither one of them
needs an additional cocoon, the finger of the distributing apparatus
remains, holding the filament of the cocoon at the corner of the basin
where it has been dropped. When a circuit is closed by the weakening
of any one of the threads, an electromagnetic catch is released, and
the truck with its finger is drawn across the basin by a weight. At
the same time the stop shown dotted in Fig. 3 is thrown out opposite
to the thread that needs strengthening. This stop strikes the tang of