D SPINNING

From a Fourteenth Century MS. in the British Museum]

Certain rude forms of the spinning wheel seem to have been known from
time immemorial. The use of the wheel in Europe cannot, however, be
dated back earlier than the fifteenth century. In the primitive wheel
the spindle, having a groove worked in its whorl, was mounted
horizontally in a framework fixed to the end of a bench. A band
passed around the whorl and was carried around a large wheel fixed
farther back on the bench, and this wheel, being turned by the hand of
the spinner, gave a rapid rotation to the spindle.

[Illustration: AN ANCIENT LOOM

From an Egyptian Monument]

The fibers to be spun were first combed out by means of carding
boards--an implement of unknown antiquity, consisting of two boards
with wire teeth set in them at a uniform angle. The fiber to be carded
was thinly spread upon one of the boards, and then the other was
pushed backward and forward across it, the teeth of the two
overlapping at opposite angles, until the fibers were combed out and
laid straight in parallel lines. The fibers were then scraped off the
boards in rollers or "cardings" about twelve inches long and
three-quarters of an inch in diameter. An end of the carding was then
attached to the spindle and the wheel set in motion. The carding
itself was held in the hand of the spinner and gradually drawn out and
twisted by the rotation of the spindle. As soon as a sufficient length
had been attenuated and twisted to the required fineness, the thread
so produced was held at right angles to the spindle and allowed to
wind up on it. But for fine spinning two operations of the wheel were
generally necessary. By the first spinning the fibers were drawn out
and slightly attenuated into what was called a roving, and by the
second spinning the roving itself passed through a similar cycle of
operations to bring it to the required degree of attenuation and
twist.

Many improvements in the primitive wheel were introduced from time to
time. In its later developments two spindles were employed, the
spinner being thus enabled to manipulate two threads at once, one in
each hand. This was the latest form of the spinning-wheel, and it
survived until it was superseded in the eighteenth century by the
great series of inventions which inaugurated the industrial revolution
and led in the nineteenth century to the introduction of the factory
system.

[Illustration: EARLIER SPINNING