THE ELECTRIC STOP-MOTION IN THE COTTON MILL.


The number of inventions for use as stop-motions in and about the
various machines in the cotton mill has been to a certain extent
something like the search after perpetual motion. Very available and
quite satisfactory stop-motions have for a number of years been employed
wherever the thread or sliver has been twisted so that strength was
given it to resist a slight amount of friction, but the main trouble
in the mill has been done after the sliver leaves the railway head and
during its transit in the various processes employed between the railway
head and the spinning frame or mule. Every carder or spinner knows that
where an injury comes to the sliver because the sliver is soft, but
partially condensed and very susceptible to injury, the injury is
magnified and multiplied in every successive process. Virtually the
field was long since abandoned for an accurate quick-working motion that
should be applicable to any and all the machines and to every sliver or
strand of the machine.

This invention was solved practically about two years since, and is
now being employed as applied to drawing frames, doublers, speeder,
intermediate, and slubber. It is a very cunning mechanical appliance,
too, and has found favor to a great extent in England, where several
thousand heads of drawing and speeders are already supplied.

This invention was exhibited at the Centennial in 1876, although in a
somewhat crude state. Since that time it has been materially improved,
and mechanically is very nearly perfect now. Many attempts have been
made to apply a stop motion, which should be quick in its movement and
accurate in its result, to carding engines or the card, not one of