subject signed "Justice," which had appeared in Engineering, he had received a communication from Mr. Jones, of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, in which he stated that he (Mr. Jones) had made his first experiments on the use of steam in this way in 1875. The fact was that the same idea had evidently occurred independently to Mr. Jones and Mr. Considore. Mr. Davis then proceeded to explain a variety of modes of fixing down the mould in which ingots were to be compressed, and he concluded by remarking that he was unaware of the use at Bolton of air under pressure for compressing fluid steel.

ON THE MANUFACTURE OF JUTE.

By WILLIAM FLEMING, of Barrow-in-Furness.
Paper read before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, at Barrow.

While jute has long been known to the natives of Bengal, and largely used by them in various textile manufactures and for papermaking purposes, its introduction into England is of comparatavely recent date.

In 1796 the East India Company imported some small quantities of jute, and afterwards continued importing it in small lots now and then, but it made no progress whatever with the manufacturers of this country. What was thus imported seems to have been employed in the neighborhood of London in the production of door mats, ropes, etc. Portions of the samples, however, appear to have found their way to Abingdon, in Oxfordshire, where there were a few manufacturers of sackings and woollen carpetings. There it was spun, by hand, and used up to a small extent in some of their fabrics. The Abingdon manufacturers therefore appear to have the credit of being the first to employ jute in textile fabrics in this country.

About 1833 some of the jute yarn thus spun at Abingdon was sent to Dundee, where the matter attracted attention, and shortly afterwards was commenced at Dundee that manufacture of jute, which has resulted in such an extraordinary development of this industry in Great Britain, Ireland and the Continent. The increase in the consumption of jute during the last fifty years is most remarkable. The total export of jute from Calcutta in 1829-30 amounted to 20 tons, valued at 607.; it has now risen (in addition to the enormous consumption for manufac

turing purposes in Bengal itself) to upwards of 350,000 tons, or nearly 2,000,000 bales annually, amounting in value to about 6,000,000l. Jute is mainly grown in Bengal and exported from Calcutta. sown in March and April and during the following three months attains a height of from 10 to 12 feet, while the stems reach from one to two inches in circumference.

It is

Shortly after the plant has flowered it is cut down near to the ground, tied up in bundles of from 50 to 100 plants each and "petted," that is, steeped in stagnant water from eight to ten days till the "bast" (or the fibre lying between the bark and the stem) can be separated from the wood. It is then removed from the water and beaten gently against a board until, with a little management, the native operator can strip off the whole from the stem without damage to either stem or fibre. The fibre is then drawn through the water until all impurities are washed or picked off. It is then dried in the sun, and, after having been assorted into different grades of quality, is exported, under various distinctive marks, in bales of 400 pounds each to London, Liverpool, Dundee, Barrow and other markets.

Softening. The jute fibre being of a somewhat harsh nature, the first process which it has to undergo after being released from the bale, where it is very tightly compressed, is that of softening. This is done by dividing the jute into stricks or handfuls, and passing these stricks through between a series of heavy fluted rollers, which, by crimping and crushing, and in a manner rubbing the fibres, render them softer and more yielding.

The softening machine consists of four horizontal rows of fluted rollers about 9 inches in diameter and 2 feet 6 inches long, and ten rollers in each row. Each roller in the bottom or fourth row bears the weight of the three rollers above it, those in the third row are pressed by the weight of two rollers, and those in the second row by the weight of one roller. The stricks of jute pass first between the pairs of rollers constituting the first and second rows, then return between the second and third rows, and pass lastly between the third and fourth rows, being delivered in a softened condition at the opposite end of the machine to that where they were introduced, and having been subjected during the process to an increasing weight as they entered between the different rows. The softening of the jute is at the same time assisted by an operation called "batching," i. e., the sprinkling of the stricks with oil and water whilst they are passing through the machine. This

is done by having two cisterns, one containing water and the other containing oil, placed over the machine. Inside the cisterns are revolving rollers which lift the liquids and discharge them over a scraper, or doctor, dropping them upon the jute as it passes between the rollers.

Breaker-Card.-The jute having been softened, and weighed into bundles, is conveyed to the breaker-card.

The principal parts of this machine consist of a cylinder 4 feet in diameter by 6 feet wide on its working surface, covered with sharp steel pins inclined slightly forward in the direction in which the cylinder revolves, and of a number of small rollers arranged round the periphery of the cylinder, each of these rollers being also covered with pointed pins. The stricks of jute are laid or spread by the attendant upon an endless traveling sheet, which conveys them to the first roller, called the feeder, and the pins which cover the surface of this roller enter the jute and carry it forward to the point where it comes in contact with the pins of the cylinder. The surface speed of the pins of the feeder being about 10 feet per minute, whilst the speed of the pins of the cylinder is about 2,000 feet per minute, the fibres, which are slowly presented and delivered by the feeder, receive a severe combing or dressing from the pins on the cylinder before they are finally released by the feeder. The cast-iron shell which encases the feeder for about one-sixth of its circumference serves to keep the fibres imbedded in the feeder-pins, so as to prevent their being carried off by the cylinder before being properly carded. A large quantity of the fibre, however, when struck by the pins of the rapidly revolving cylinder, is broken off and carried forward on the points of the cylinder pins, and it is to straighten out, comb and split these portions that the other rollers, called workers and strippers, are applied.

The first roller that acts, after the fibres have left the feed roller, is the worker. This roller, which is about 9 inches in diameter, is placed with its pin-points at a distance of from to inch from the points of the cylinder pins. The angle of the worker pins is very much more acute than that of the cylinder pins, and inclined in the opposite direction. The roller revolves in the same direction as the cylinder, but at a speed of only about 50 feet per minute. The effect is that the fibres projecting from the pins of the cylinder are caught on the pins of the slowly revolving worker, and as the direction and pull of the cylinder pins tend to force the fibres on to the pins of the worker, a

considerable portion is retained by the latter. The worker is in its turn cleared of fibre by the stripper, a roller about 13 inches in diameter, which revolves at a speed of about 430 feet per minute in the opposite direction to the worker, and, traveling with pins inclined forward, it strips the fibres from the worker and is afterwards itself cleared by the still more rapidly traveling cylinder.

The same process is repeated at the second worker and stripper, which are placed rather closer to the pins of the cylinder than the first two rollers. After passing the second worker and stripper, the fibres are carried forward to the doffer, a roller about 16 inches in diameter, which travels in the same direction and at about the same speed as the worker, and has its covering similarly arranged, except that in the doffer the pins are rather finer and more numerous. The pins of this roller are set close to those of the cylinder, so that the whole of the fibres are caught by them and carried round to the two doffing-rollers, which take the jute from the doffer in the form of a continuous broad sheet or fleece. This thin sheet of carded jute, after it issues from the doffing roller, is gathered together or contracted from about 5 feet to 4 inches by means of a tin conductor, and it then passes through the delivery-rollers in the form of a continuous sliver, and falls into a can.

The surface speed of the doffing and delivery-rollers is generally about fourteen times quicker than that of the feed-roller; consequently if the jute be spread so that the feed-roller receives about 2 pounds per yard, the sliver delivered into the can will measure about 7 yards per pound.

The tin rollers under the workers and strippers are to prevent the fibres, as much as possible, from falling to the ground when the stripper is clearing the worker.

Finisher-Card.-The jute sliver as delivered by the breaker card is not considered to be sufficiently carded for most purposes, and it is therefore necessary that the process of carding should be repeated on a second machine called the finisher-card. The principle on which this machine works is exactly the same as that of the breaker card, but instead of only two workers and two strippers there are sometimes three, four or five pairs of these rollers, and the pins on the surface of the cylinder and rollers are finer and set closer to one another, so as to comb and split the fibres more efficiently. The finisher-card is fed by slivers from twelve cans from the breaker card upon an endless traveling sheet, similar to that used in the breaker-card, which carries them

forward to be acted upon by the cylinder of the finisher in the same manner as the stricks of jute are acted upon in the breaker-card. It will be understood that the slivers as delivered by the breaker-card, although continuous, must necessarily be rather irregular, i. e., thicker in some parts than others, but by putting twelve of these already partially carded slivers through the finisher together, a kind of average is struck and the slivers delivered by the finisher card are much more regular and even. The "draft," or proportion of speed between the delivery roller and feeder of the finisher-card is about 16 to 1, so that, being fed by twelve slivers, each measuring about 7 yards per pound, and these being subjected to draft of 16, the sliver delivered by the finisher-card will measure about 9 yards per pound.

Drawing-Frame. The next process after carding is to have the fibres of jute drawn out straight and laid parallel alongside one another, and this is accomplished on a machine called the drawingframe.

There are several kinds of drawing frame, all intended to produce the same results, but the kind most in use is the system called the "spiral gill drawing-frame." In this machine the slivers, which have been delivered into the cans from the finisher card, pass over a conductor plate and thence between three rollers, which are called the retaining-rollers, and are in fact the feed-rollers of the machine. Just in front of the delivery side of these rollers is a series of traveling bars on which are fixed hackles or gills, i. e., brass stocks with steel pins standing upright in them. These bars, with the gills attached, travel forward from the retaining-rollers, carrying with them the jute fibres into which the pins penetrate, their speed being the same as that of the retaining-rollers, or just as much faster as will insure that the slivers are kept tight and do not rise off the pins. The bars are propelled by means of two longitudinal screws, one at each end of the bar, cut at a pitch varying from 1 to 2 threads per inch. The end of the bar which enters into the thread of the screw is beveled to the angle of the thread, so that the body of the bar and the pins are quite vertical, whilst the end fits the spiral, and there being one bar in each thread of the screw, when the screws revolve the bars glide forward, supported on steel slides. These screws are called the top screws, and the length of their threaded part is made suitable for the length of fibre, say about 10 or 11 inches for carded jute. As each bar arrives at the front or further end of the top screws it drops from the slide