a woven fabric prepared from the spun thread of flax (Linum usitatissimum), the cultivation of which is noticed under AGRICULTURE, and HEMP; the method of bleaching it is noticed under BLEACHING; and of imparting colour to it, under DYING. In the present article we propose to notice briefly the modes of preparing linen thread, referring to our general article on WEAVING for an account of the textile fabric.

As soon as the flax has been pulled, it is usual to separate the linseed from the stalk by the process of rippling; the ripple consisting of a row of iron teeth about 18 inches long, firmly fixed in a bench or plank; on drawing the stalks briskly through the ripple, the seed bolls are quickly separated. The next process is retting, or steeping in water, in order to separate the woody portion of the stalk, or boon, from the filamentous portion, which is the flax. The common method of doing this is in pools or pits filled with water, as noticed in one of the previous articles referred to; but it is now done more quickly and economically by means of steam, which effects in about 60 hours that which, under the old process, requires from 10 days to 3 or 6 weeks. Under the new process the flax is steeped in large circular vats, furnished with steam-pipes. The flax is held down in the vats by strong cross-bars of wood; water is then let in from time to time, until the flax ceases to absorb it. Steam is then made to circulate through the steam-pipe at the bottom of the vat, so as to raise the water to about 90 degrees, and maintain it at that temperature. In the course of a few hours the acetic fermentation has set in, and the resinous or gummy matter, which binds the parts of the stalk together, becomes decomposed, and the decomposition is completed in about 60 hours. The water is then drawn off, and the flax is removed to be dried either in the open air, or in a drying chamber, artificially heated. Improved methods of retting flax, by means of alkali solutions, with the assistance of pressing rollers and vacuum vessels, have been patented.

The woody portion of the straw, being thus loosened from the filaments, is separated by the processes of breaking and scutching.

The break is a machine consisting of two rows of iron grooves, one fixed to a frame, and the other falling down upon it, in such a way that the convex part of the upper row of grooves falls into the concave part of the under row, and bruises the wood without injuring the fibre. The upper row of grooves is brought down by the action of a treadle, and is raised by means of a spring. The operator passes the flax between these grooves, so as to bruise the boon, and enable it to separate easily under the blade of the scutching-knife, which is a broad wooden blade held in the right hand, while with the left a handful of bruised flax straw is introduced into a groove in a wooden stand, and so beaten with the scutch-blade as to strike away the bits of woody matter. These operations are often performed by machinery, in which rollers are employed to crack the boon, and rotating knives attached to the face of a vertical wheel to separate the woody particles. Mr MacAdams' machinery is on this plan. Mr Plummer, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, has patented a number of machines for the preparation of flax. In his flax-breaking machine the flutes on contiguous rollers are not quite in contact, so that the flax straw in passing between them is not damaged. It is the opinion of this patentee, that in the usual method of scutching and preparing flax for the spinning-mill, the principle has been to attain fineness by reducing and destroying the character of the fibre, rather than supporting the fibre, while undergoing the operation of cleaning. Instead, therefore, of the rigid tools to which flax is usually submitted, brushes of whalebone, bristles, or other suitable materials of various degrees of fineness, are used in most of the preparatory processes. In the rotary disk scutching-mill, an attempt is made to imitate the process of hand-scutching, by passing the flax between a series of disks covered with brushes instead of knives or blades. The flax, while being scutched, is held in a mechanical holder instead of in the hand.

The flax thus freed from its woody particles, is made up into bundles of 16 or 24 lbs., the former being termed the English, and the latter the Scotch stone. The great markets for supplying the spinning trade of the three kingdoms are Leeds, Belfast, and Dundee. The length of the staple in flax may vary from 26 to 30 or 36 inches, and the fibre is of different degrees of fineness in its different parts, that near the root being coarse and strong, the middle portion fine and strong, and the upper part fine, but not so strong. Hence the first operation on the flax in the flax-mill is to divide the lengths into three parts, which are kept separate, and furnish different qualities of thread. The division is made not by cutting, but by tearing the filaments asunder, so as to leave loose ends, which, in spinning, would combine with other similar ends placed upon them. The machine for dividing the flax consists of holding or friction-wheels which move slowly, and hold the flax, while a centre wheel,

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1 Mr MacAdam is Secretary to the Society for the Promotion and Improvement of the Growth of Flax in Ireland. He is the author of an essay "On the Cultivation of Flax," which gained the prize offered by the Royal Agricultural Society of England. The essay is inserted in the 8th vol. of the Society's Journal. furnished with oval projections on its periphery, tears the fibres asunder. With flax of long staple, four or five divisions may be made instead of three.

The heaps or sticks of flax thus formed are cleaned, split, separated into fibres in parallel order, while the short fibre or tow is separated by the process of heckling. The heckle or hackle is a sort of comb with iron or steel teeth, very sharp at the points, arranged on a block of wood. Heckles are of various degrees of fineness; and, in some cases, the teeth being set close together, a heckle may contain more than a thousand, arranged in parallel rows. By throwing the flax upon these teeth, and drawing it out, the tow is combed out, and the long fibre or line, as it is called, remains; 100 lbs. of well-cleaned flax yielding from 45 lbs. to 60 lbs. of line; the rest being tow, bony particles, and dust. In some cases, between the first and second hecklings, the flax is folded up in a bundle and beaten on a block with a wooden mallet, after which it is well rubbed in the hands. Heckling is also commonly performed by machinery, for which purpose the lengths of flax of 10 or 12 inches are spread out and fixed in an iron vice or holder; a number of these holders are hung on to a circular frame, within which revolves a drum covered with sharp heckling teeth, the outer frame revolving more slowly in the contrary direction, and depositing the holders upon a rail after they have passed through about half a circle. The holders are then turned the other way, so that the other portion of the fibres may be heckled. After this the holders are opened, the flax is inverted, and again passed through the machine. Mr Plummer has several improved heckling machines, both for cot flax and for long flax; he objecting to the plan of cutting up the flax into lengths, and maintaining that if a long and generous fibre be treated with gentleness instead of harshness, considerable saving may be effected. In the double heckling machines both sides of the flax are brushed before it meets with the heckling points or pins, by which means crossed or entangled fibres are got rid of.

The next operation in the mill is sorting the heckled flax or line, so as to separate the sticks into various degrees of fineness, which is done as much by the touch as by the eye, while the fibres are frequently drawn through a block-heckle to keep them parallel. The sorted line is placed in certain boxes or divisions marked respectively—2 lbs., 3 lbs., 4 lbs., 5 lbs., 6 lbs., 7 lbs., and so on—from an old method of comparing fineness and weight.

The sorted line is now subjected to the operations of spreading, drawing, and roving, whereby it is converted into ribbons or slivers. It is spread upon a feeding-cloth, in such a way that the ends of the second stick reach the middle of the first; by which means a uniform thickness is maintained, the heckle-sticks being thicker in the middle than at the ends. The feeding-cloth delivers the flax to a pair of rollers, and these pass it on through gills or heckling-points to a second pair, which, moving at greater speed, increase the length and diminish the thickness of the line, so as to convert it into a flat narrow sliver or ribbon, which is received by a tin can. This being full, it is taken to a drawing or spreading frame, where a number of slivers are united and drawn into one length. This drawing is as important for flax as for cotton, and is sometimes repeated three or four times, increasing the number of drawings each time. After this the drawings pass through a roving-frame, where they are slightly twisted, and are then wound upon bobbins preparatory to spinning.

The spinning-wheel has, during many years, been superseded for flax as well as for cotton; and the machinery employed for the one resembles that used for the other; only as the fibres of flax do not so readily unite as those of cotton, it is necessary for fine work to moisten them, so as to make them more pliable and easy to spin. The water usually employed is raised to the temperature of about 120°, and is contained in a trough, which extends the whole length of the throstle or spinning-frame.

The fineness of the yarn thus formed is estimated by the number of leas to the pound weight, the lea consisting of 300 yards. Less than twenty years ago, the fineness of machine-spun linen yarn was stated at 150 leas to the pound. Of late years, from 200 to 240 leas line has been spun. It is used in the manufacture of Irish lawns and coarse cambrics; but for fine work, such as the lawns and handkerchiefs of Cambrai and Valenciennes, hand-spun yarns are preferred; some of which, as shown in the Great Exhibition, particularly those exhibited by Messrs Berthelot and Bonte, of Cambrai, are, to use the words of the Jury Report "surprisingly fine, perfect, and beautiful; being up to 1200's warp, and 1600's weft yarn; and are certainly equal, if not superior, to anything of the kind hitherto produced."

It has been already noticed that the various qualities of line are sorted into 2 lbs., 3 lbs., 4 lbs., and so on. A bundle of linen yarn, consisting of 20 banks, of 10 leas each, or 60,000 yards, is sometimes named by the number of leas to the pound, or by its weight, thus: a bundle of 25 leas per pound weighs 8 lbs.; a bundle of 50 leas per pound weighs 4 lbs.; one of 100 leas per pound weighs 2 lbs.; so that 8 lbs., 4 lbs., and 2 lbs. correspond in size with 25 leas, 50 leas, and 100 leas. Now, in sorting, a certain quantity of line will spin to a certain size or weight per bundle; and it was long usual with the line sorters, to name certain qualities as 2 lbs., 3 lbs., 4 lbs., &c.; because that quality of line would spin to that weight per bundle. Line sorters still retain the same standard and name, although, from various improvements in the trade, much finer line can be spun from the same weight than formerly.

Linen thread is made by doubling the yarn, and after bleaching, it is formed into balls or reels.

The foreign trade in the linen manufacture is considerable. Our exports of linen yarn for the years 1853, 1854, 1855, were—22,898,558 lbs., 17,696,667 lbs., and 17,872,960 lbs., respectively; of which the declared values were—L.1,154,977, L.944,502, and L.916,429. The value of linen thread exported during the same years was—L.388,374, L.315,685, and L.293,819; while the exports of linen, entered by the yard, exclusive of lace of thread, during the same years, were respectively—134,165,291 yds., 111,648,657 yds., 118,247,498 yds.; of the declared values of L.4,345,500, L.3,768,107, and L.3,803,487. During the same years the exports of lace of thread were—578,623 yds., 292,568 yds., and 218,508 yds.; of the respective values of L.8267, L.7296, and L.4451. Among the imports the most considerable are cambrics and French lawns, which previously to the 11th June 1853 were entered by the piece, but since that date by the square yard. During the years 1854, 1855, there were imported 146,454 square yards, and 154,966 square yards. In 1855 there were imported—of damasks and damask-diaper, 8219 square yards; of plain linen and diaper, and manufactures not enumerated, and not made up, to the value of L.21,262; while among articles made up, the chief article is cambric handkerchiefs, of which 45,471 were imported. Of the raw material imported in the year 1855, we have—of dressed flax, 14,668 cwts.; undressed, 1,131,475 cwts.; and of tow, or codilla, of flax, 147,392 cwts.

During the Great Exhibition of 1851, the attention of the Jury, Class XIV., was attracted by manufactures in China grass; and it was remarked that, in the coarse kinds of cloth made from it, the fibre appeared to be split into lengths which were attached to each other at the smaller ends. There were also some beautiful handkerchiefs and other fine linens made from this material. It is sometimes used for making coloured fabrics, combined with other substances, such as silk and cotton; and the peculiar brilliancy of its fibre allows it to be used in this way to advantage. (C. T.)