in a much shorter time by the means above set out, than by any other methods or process heretofore in use.[Inrolled in the Rolls Chapel Office, December, 1836.] Specification drawn by Messrs. Newton and Berry.

To JOHN BURNS SMITH, of Salford, in the county of Lancaster, spinner, and JOHN SMITH, of Halifax, in the county of York, dyer, for their invention of a certain method or methods of tentering, stretching, or keeping out cloth to its width, made either of cotton, silk, wool, or any other fibrous substances, by machinery.[Sealed 10th August, 1836.]

THIS improved method of tentering, stretching, or keeping out cloth to its width, made either of cotton, silk, wool, or any other fibrous substance, by machinery, consists, firstly, in a peculiar construction and arrangement of those parts or pieces of the apparatus which are to be brought immediately into connexion with the selvages of the cloth, and which are intended to carry the system of fine points, or tenters, for holding out the cloth; and, secondly, in the novel manner of guiding or conducting such series of points or needles, in order that they may be made to enter the cloth with ease, and allow the same to be stretched by the agency of other parts of the machinery particularly intended for that purpose. It will be remembered that most cloths, or other woven fabrics, are subject to shrinking or contraction in the width of the piece when submitted to the necessary operations of bleaching, dyeing, stiffening, or other wetting process, and that, consequently, in order to regain the original, or any desired width of the piece of goods that has become so shrunk or con

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tracted, it is necessary to submit it to the process of stretching or tentering, and then drying it in the stretched or extended state.

To effect this stretching operation of the fabric while drying, our improved machinery is designed and is capable of facilitating and accomplishing the same in a more perfect manner than by any of the methods which are usually adopted. In order that this our improvement may be more perfectly explained and better understood, as well as for the convenience of showing such parts or pieces in connexion in their operating situations, with respect to the other parts of the machinery, we have thought it advisable to exhibit in the drawings, representations of our improved stretching machinery complete, as well as in the several detached views of our improved parts in detail.

Fig. 4, Plate II., represents a sectional elevation, taken longitudinally, through the middle of the machine; and underneath this figure the furnace is shown, with the necessary flues for heating the air chamber, with which the machinery is connected, for the purpose of drying the goods while under operation.

The principal framing of the machine is composed of iron plates, which are rivetted, or otherwise fastened together, in such suitable pieces as shall form the bottom and sides of the machine; and it is then to be covered with a series of plates to constitute the top and to render the whole a moderately air-tight chamber, capable of retaining the greater portion of the heat with which it is intended to be charged, by means of the furnace, or by a continuous supply of hot water or steam conducted through it in pipes, or by any other manner that may be preferred. This chamber, or casing of the machinery, is shown at a, a, a, a, and there are

four rotary shafts, b, b, b, b, placed across the machine at suitable distances apart, having right and left handed screws cut upon them; both ends of those shafts bear upon suitable pedestals, bolted to the outside of the framing of the machine, and the boxes or nuts in which these screws act, are let in and securely fastened to the two grooved rails or cheeks c, c, c, c. These threaded shafts are for the purpose of adjusting the distances of the rows or series of pins or points sliding in the rails c, c, c, upon which the piece of cloth, or other fabric under operation, is to be held, as will be hereafter more particularly described. There are also six transverse rails, having V or upper angular edges formed upon them, for the purpose of bearing or supporting the grooved rails c, c, c. These grooved rails are formed on the upper edges of frames, applied in parallel ranges in one part, but slightly inclined at the other part. The groove in each is for conducting and supporting the tenter pieces d, d, d, d, which carry the pins or points e, e, e, e.

Fig. 5, is a horizontal or top view of one of the tenter pieces d. Fig. 6, a front elevation of the same, having also a transverse section of one of the grooved rails on the top edge of the frame c, c; and fig. 7, is a side view of one of the tenter pieces. These tenter pieces are blocks of cast-iron, which have two teeth or cogs 1, 1, formed in their under side, as ordinary straight rack teeth, and also two gudgeons or studs 2, 2, cylindrically formed, extending from their sides. A series of steel pins, straight tenters, or points 3, 3, 3, are fixed about the eighth of an inch apart, upon brass ribs, or narrow plates, which are to be firmly screwed upon the castiron piece, as shown in these figures. The gudgeons, or projecting studs 2, 2, are intended to run freely in