regard to the mechanical excellence of its operations or its results. I have said that the power-loom formed a new era, and it is not easy to conceive how this series can be much improved, as it now exists in England and America.

BLEACHING AND CALENDERING.*

After the manufacture of the cloth is complete, there is the important process of bleaching to be undergone by all cotton goods; this is a very extensive branch of the business; it is necessary to remove the dirt and grease contracted in the manufacture, and the dressing applied to the warp, and also to destroy all the colour belonging to the raw material, so as to make the cloth perfectly white. The bleaching process, as performed in the middle of the last century, occupied from six to eight months. "It consisted in steeping the cloth in alkaline leys for several days, washing it clean, and spreading it on the grass for some weeks. The steeping in alkaline leys, called bucking, and the bleaching on the grass, called crofting, were repeated alternately for five or six times. The cloth was then steeped for some days in sour milk, washed clean, and crofted. These processes were repeated, diminishing every time the strength of the alkaline ley, till the linen had acquired the requisite whiteness." The art of bleaching was at that time so little understood in Great Britain, that nearly all the linens manufactured in Scotland were sent to Holland to bleach, and were kept there more than half a year, undergoing, in the bleachfields around Haarlem, the tedious processes just described.

The grand improvement in bleaching was, in the application of chlorine to the art. This acid was discovered in 1774, by Scheele, the Swedish philosopher, who observed its property of destroying vegetable colours, from its having bleached the cork of his phial. This observation having been recorded, suggested to the active mind of the French chemist, Berthollet, the thought of applying the acid to the bleaching of cloths made of vegetable fibres; and, in 1785, having found by experiment that it answered the purpose, he made known this great discovery, which brings down the time

* Bleaching, calendering, &c. were introduced at a great expense, in Providence, by Dr. Bowen, where the water is well adapted, and there is now a bleaching and beetling establishment, called by his name. The bleaching business is now very extensive in the United States, and they are becoming more perfect in the process, as more attention is paid to every department in preparation for the calico printing.

Rhode Island appears to be in advance in the bleaching business, both for the quality and quantity of its work.

required for bleaching from months to days, or even to hours. James Watt learnt this at Paris, and introduced it into England in 1786.

Mr. Henry was one of the first persons to suggest the addition of lime, which takes away the noxious smell of the oxymuriatic acid without injuring its bleaching properties.

So great was the facility thus given to the process of bleaching, that it is recorded that a bleacher, in Lancashire, received fourteen hundred pieces of grey muslin on a Tuesday, which, on the Thursday immediately following, were returned, bleached, to the manufacturers, at the distance of sixteen miles; and they were packed up and sent off, that very day, to a foreign market. This is considered as not an extraordinary performance. Without this wonderful saving of time and capital, the quantity of cotton goods now manufactured could scarcely have been bleached.

Mr. Tennant, "after a great deal of most laborious and acute investigation," hit upon the method of making a saturated liquid of chloride of lime, which was found to answer perfectly all the purposes of the bleacher.

Mr. Tennant uses five and a half parts of black oxide of manganese, seven and a half parts of common salt, and twelve and a quarter parts of sulphuric acid, of the specific gravity of 1.843, diluted with an equal quantity of water to make the chlorine gas, with which he impregnates a layer of slacked lime, some inches thick, in a stone chamber. By recent improvements in the manufacture, he has doubled the value of the bleaching powder, whilst its price is reduced to one half; the present price is 3d. sterling per pound. By many bleachers this powder is used, mixed with a proper quantity of water; but the great bleachers use liquid chloride of lime, which they make in leaden stills; steam being used to expel the gas from the materials,-and the gas being received into a cream of lime, which becomes saturated with it.

The processes through which cottons pass in the hands of the bleacher, are as follows:-The cloth is first singed, by being drawn rapidly over a copper or iron cylinder heated to a red heat, which burns off the down and loose fibres on the surface, without injuring the fabric. It is next thrown, in loose folds, into a cistern of cold water, where it remains some time; and it is afterwards more effectually washed by being put into a large hollow wheel, called the dash-wheel, usually divided into four compartments; this is supplied with a jet of clear spring water, thrown in through a circular slit in the side, which revolves opposite the end of a flattened pipe, by which means the cloth is well washed, as it is

thrown backwards and forwards in the rapidly-revolving wheel. By this means a considerable portion of the weaver's dressing is removed. Next, the cloth is boiled with lime: the pieces of calico are placed in a kier, or boiler having a false bottom, perforated with holes, and with layers of cream of lime between the pieces; one pound of lime being used for every thirty-five pounds of the cloth. It is so contrived, that the boiling water is spouted on the goods, filters through them and the lime into that part of the boiler below the false bottom; is again forced up a pipe in the middle of the boiler, and falls again upon the goods: and this process is repeated for about eight hours. By this lime boiling the dressing, dirt, and grease, are removed from the cloth; and the lime itself is removed by a careful washing in the dash-wheel.

The cloth is now subjected to the action of the bleaching liquid; that is, chloride of lime dissolved in water.

A solution of one pound of bleaching powder with one gallon of water, has a specific gravity of 1.05; but water is added till the solution is reduced to the specific gravity of 1.02. The quantity of this liquor used for 700lbs. of cloth is 971 gallons; and 388lbs. of the solid bleaching powder is required for 700lbs. of cloth. The goods are left in the cold bleaching liquid about six hours, and when taken out they are considerably whitened. Having been washed, the cloth is next put into a very weak solution of sulphuric acid, containing eight gallons of the acid in 200 gallons of water. This is called the souring process, which lasts about four hours. By this the oxide of iron, which, in the course of the operations, has been deposited on the cloth, giving it a yellowish hue, and the lime which it had imbibed, are removed, and the cloth becomes much whiter. It is again washed in cold water, and then boiled for eight hours more in an alkaline ley. Sixty-four pounds of carbonate of soda are used to 2,100lbs. of unbleached cloth. After this the cloth is steeped a second time in the bleaching liquid, which is only two-thirds of the strength of the first, where it remains 5 or 6 hours; and a second time in the mixture of sulphuric acid and water, where it remains 4 hours. The last souring process completes the bleaching of the cloth, which comes out of the acid solution perfectly white. The cloth is then very carefully washed, to remove all trace of the sulphuric acid and water: it is freed from the greater part of the water by being squeezed between two rollers, and is then straightened and mangled in the damp state. To improve the appearance of the cloth, it is usually passed through starch made of wheaten flour, often mixed with porcelain clay and calcined sulphurate of lime; by which the cloth is made stiffer,

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 o.der 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.