and appears to have great substance. (It would be creditable to the trade to lay this aside, as having the appearance of fraud.) The cloth is dried by being passed through a drying machine, consisting of several copper cylinders heated by steam: it is then again damped, in order to fit it to receive the gloss which is imparted in the process of calendering.* The calender consists of several wooden and iron rollers, placed above each other in a frame, and held together by levers and pulleys; the cloth, passing between these rollers, is strongly pressed; the surface becomes glossy, and sometimes it is made to assume a wiry appearance by two pieces being put through the calender together, in which case the threads of each are impressed on the face of the other. The goods are then folded up in pieces, stamped with marks varying according to the foreign or domestic markets for which they are intended, and pressed in a Bramah's press; after which they are packed up and sent to the merchant. * On Mangling Cloths.-The business of smoothing cloths, as usually practised in the United States, is a very serious one in a warm day, and many females have laid the foundation for an attack of acute disease, and protracted ill-health, by fatigue and imprudent exposure to a current of air after being much heated by a hard day's duty. To remedy these evils, mangles have been invented. There are but few families in Europe without one of these useful machines, by which the numerous articles having plain, smooth surfaces, are smoothed with expedition, and acquire a gloss which cannot be given by flat irons. The following is the best. Two horizontal cylindrical rollers form a bed for the roller on which the linen to be mangled is rolled. The axes of those rollers bear on brass, let into the wood frame, and have a wheel fixed to each, which works in a pinion on the axis of the fly-wheel: a moveable roller on which the linen to be mangled is rolled: a roller, the axis of which works in pieces of brass, which slide between iron, let into the inner side of the wood frame, to the bottom of which long pieces of iron are fixed, with hooks at their lower extremities, to which are attached the chains that support the scale or platform, where iron weights, or any other substance, are placed; to the top of the brass in which the roller works, the engine chains are fastened, which pass through apertures at each end of the top of the wood frame, and are there again fastened on the pulleys of the shaft with a screw: there is a lever fixed to the end of the shaft. To use the machine, press the lever, and fasten it with the hook, which raises the roller with the platform and weights attached to it: then take out the roller, and roll the linen and mangling cloth round it, and replace it on the two bottom rollers, unhook the lever, and the weights on the platform will press the roller on the other; give motion to the fly-wheel and also to all the rollers by turning the handle, which, in a short time, will make the linen beautifully smooth; press down the lever, fasten it with the hook, and take the roller out: a spare roller is supplied, so that if two people are employed, one may be filling it with linen, while the other is mangling. Such are the processes by which the rough, gray and dirty fabric brought in by the weaver, is converted into the smooth and snowy cloth ready for the hands of the seamstress. The processes vary a little in duration and frequency, according to the quality of the cloth to be bleached. Every thing is done by machinery or by chemical agents, and the large bleach-works require steam engines of considerable power. Human hands only convey the cloth from process to process. There is much beauty in many of the operations; and great skill is needed in the mere disposition of the several cisterns and machines, so that the goods may pass through the processes with the smallest expenditure of time. Large capital has been expended on many of the bleach-works; an extraordinary perfection has been attained in the machinery, and in all the details of the arrangements strict method and order prevail; the managers are men of science, who are eager to adopt every chemical and mechanical improvement that may occur to themselves or others. The processes above described can be performed in two or three days, at the cost of a half-penny per yard, on cloth bleached and finished. A perfect understanding of the bleaching business is essential to success; great quantities of cloth were destroyed in the process, by those who first made the experiment in this country; and even now great care is necessary to prevent the fabrics being injured; but this, like every other branch of manufacture, is becoming more perfect, and is carried on with greater economy and order, and all which is essential to success. My limits forbid enlargement, which, for the importance of the subject, deserves a volume of itself, to explain all its branches and modifications. CHAPTER XI. CALICO PRINTING. "Truth is not local; God alike pervades COWPER. We come now to treat of the important art of calico printing, which constitutes a very large branch of the cotton manufacture, and by means of which the value of calicoes, muslins, and other cotton fabrics, are greatly enhanced. Cotton cloth, when used for the outer garments of the female sex, the drapery of beds and windows, the coverings of furniture, and similar purposes, is ornamented with colours and patterns. Unlike silk and woollen fabrics, cottons are very rarely dyed of a uniform colour throughout; a variety of colours is fixed upon a single piece, and they are printed on the white cotton or muslin in an endless variety of patterns, thus giving a light and elegant effect to the print. The art of the calico printer, therefore, not only comprehends that of the dyer, which requires all the aid of chemical science, but also that of the artist, for the designing of tasteful and elegant patterns; that of the engraver, for transferring those patterns to the metal used to impress them on the cloth; and that of the mechanician, for the various mechanical processes of engraving and printing. Taste, chemistry, and mechanics, have been called the three legs of calico printing. Calico printing is believed not to have been practised in Europe till the seventeenth century. In what country the art was first introduced is doubtful. Calico printing has been the subject of modern improvements, which may be compared in importance with those in cotton spinning and bleaching. First was the block printing. But the grand improvement in the art was the invention of cylinder printing, which bears nearly the same relation in point of despatch to block printing by hand, as throstle or mule spinning bears to spinning by the one thread wheel. This great invention is said to have been made by a Scotsman of the name of Bell, and it was first successfully applied in Lan |