SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE.


At the recent semi-annual meeting of the New England Cotton
Manufacturers' Association, held at the Institute of Technology, Boston,
the following paper on the Harris system of revolving ring spinning was
read by Col. Webber for the author:

It is well known that one of the most serious difficulties in ring
spinning is the variable pull upon the traveler, caused by the
difference in diameter of the full and empty bobbins, and this is
especially noticeable in spinning weft, or filling, when the diameter of
the quill at the tip is not over 3-16 of an inch, while that of the base
of the cone, or full bobbin, is from an inch to an inch and one-eighth.
This variation in diameter causes the line of draught upon the traveler,
which, with the full bobbin, forms nearly a tangent to the interior
circle of the ring, to be nearly radial to it with an empty one, and
this increased drag upon the traveler not only causes frequent breakage
in spinning, but also stretches the yarn, so that it is perceptibly
finer when it is spun on the nose of the bobbin than when it is spun on
the bottom of the cone.

Endeavors have been made to compensate for this difficulty by making
a less draught at that period of the operation; but we believe the
principle of curing one error by adding another to be wrong, and aim by
our improvement to avoid the cause of the trouble, which we do by giving
a revolving motion to the ring itself in the same direction as that of
the traveler, at a variable speed, so as to aid its slip, and reduce its