SPINNING Wheel. A very considerable improvement has been made by Mr Antis of Fulneck near Leeds of the common spinning wheel. It is well known, that hitherto much time has been lost by stopping the wheel in order to shift the thread from one staple on the flyer to another; but in Mr Antis's wheel the bobbin is made to move backwards and forwards, so as to prevent the necessity of this perpetual interruption, as well as to ob-
Spinning
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Spinoza.
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viate the danger of breaking the thread and losing the end. This is effected by the axis of the great wheel being extended through the pillar next the spinner, and formed into a pinion of one leaf A, which takes into a wheel B, seven inches diameter, having on its periphery 97 teeth; so that 97 revolutions of the great wheel cause one of the lesser wheel. On this lesser wheel is fixed a ring of wire c e e; which, being supported on six legs, stands obliquely to the wheel itself, touching it at one part, and projecting nearly three quarters of an inch at the opposite one: near the side of this wheel is an upright lever C, about 15 inches long, moving on a centre, three inches from its lower extremity, and connected at the top to a sliding bar D; from which rises an upright piece of brass E, which working in the notch of a pulley drives the bobin F backward and forward, according as the oblique wire forces a pin G in or out, as the wheel moves round. To regulate and assist the alternate motion, a weight H hangs by a line to the sliding bar, and passing over a pulley I rises and falls as the bobin advances or recedes, and tends constantly to keep the pin in contact with the wire. It is evident, from this description, that one staple only is wanted to the flyer; which, being placed near the extremity K, the thread passing through it is by the motion of the bobin laid regularly thereon. For this invention the Society instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. gave the author a premium of twenty guineas.