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 es e, e, la

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

their points or ends will then appear through the upper surface of the cloth. Power being applied to the driving pulley, by means of a strap in connexion with a pulley upon the ordinary line shafting in the building wherein the machine is constructed, that power is communicated through the pair of mitre wheels n, n, to the longitudinal shaft m, m, and then by means of the three pairs of bevils o, o, o, to the transverse shafts ƒ, ƒiƒ. These shafts f, f, f, impart the rotary motion to the toothed pinions g, g, g, which being in gear with the rack formed upon the under side of the tenter pieces d, causes them to proceed in their course through the machine, as the cloth or piece of goods is placed upon the points of the tenters at the feeding end of the machine, while in its shrunken or narrow state. The front or entering ends of the cheeks or bars c, c, c, c, are required to be slightly brought toward each other, and this is effected by constructing the frames of the bars with joints at the parts marked p, p. By these means the progressive motion of the tentering points, with the cloth securely held upon them, moving along the expanding rail, causes the fabric to be gradually stretched until it has arrived to the part p, whence it proceeds in parallel lines throughout the remaining length of the machine: the required distance apart of these parallel bars, frames or cheeks c, c, having first been adjusted by means of the screwed shafts b, b, b, b, in the following manner. There is a longitudinal shaft q, q, q, mounted upon suitable pedestals or bearings on the opposite side of the machine to the driving shaft, upon which shaft q, are keyed the bevilled pinions r, r,r, taking into corresponding wheels s, s, s, fixed upon the ends of the screwed shafts b, b, b, b; and by means of the winch t, which is placed upon the square of the

shaft q, q, at the feeding end of the machine, the work, man in attendance is enabled to set the cheeks or frames c, c, to the required distance apart, that is, to the width which the cloth is intended to be when finished; and he is also enabled to set the frames c, c, at the entrance or feeding end of the machine, to the width of the piece, whatever that may be, which is entering the machine in its shrunken and contracted state. This is done by turning the hand wheels v, v, keyed upon the first screwed shaft b*, having first put the pinion on the longitudinal shaft q, q, out of gear with the wheel on the end of the screwed shaft b*. It will now be perceived, that if the interior of the chamber formed by the plates a, a, has, been previously heated by the furnace below, or by hot air passing up the opening or flue u, u, the cloth, in passing, will become dried while in the extended or stretched state, being all the time held upon the parallel row of points or tenters; and that in so drying, it will consequently retain the width it has acquired or been stretched out to in passing through the machine.

Now, when the cloth has arrived at the further or delivering end of the machine, the tenter pieces, with the points, will descend, by passing under the wheel g, and the points will leave the selvages of the cloth. The cloth having become dried, as above, proceeds over the wedge-shaped pieces or inclined planes w, w, which are placed immediately under the lists; and, as the piece of cloth advances, these inclined planes assist the rise of the cloth, and effectually release it from the tentering points or pins, and it thence proceeds under the guide roller x, up to the pair of delivering rollers y, y, mounted in a cast iron framing above this end of the machine. The cloth is now delivered upon rolls, or upon the ordinary frame or table placed ready to receive

it, by passing through openings, or between rails in the vibratory delivering frame %, *, which is governed and made to reciprocate by the crank wheel and connecting rod, as shown in the drawings.

** Having above described the particular features of our improved machinery for stretching cloth or other woven fabrics, and shown the manner in which we should prefer to put the same in operation, we wish it to be understood, that we do not confine ourselves to the precise plan of working the said continuous or endless tenter pieces and racks, as shown in the drawings, as it will be very evident that they may be worked with similar effect in cylindrical, elliptical, or even eccentric races or grooves, instead of the horizontal manner, as shown in the drawings. And their ranges may be expanded or contracted by right and left handed screwed shafts, or by any other convenient means; or levers may be introduced for the same purpose, which mode of 1adjustment we do not claim; and it will also be evident "that, should a machine be required to operate upon a certain quality of cloths, which shall be invariable in their finished width, the grooved rims or races (if constructed upon a cylindrical machine) for governing the travelling of the tenter pieces, with the points; may be made without the means of adjustment; that is, these grooved rails or races may be formed as eccentric curves, round the periphery of a cylinder, should such a machine be preferred: but we have shown the plan we prefer, and have found it to be the most practicable and advantageous; and although we have shown all the figures in the drawings upon a scale as before mentioned, we do not mean to confine ourselves to the precise form or dimensions therein laid down, nor to the materials of which any of the parts shall be made; but we claim,