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GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. gy threaded up, and commenced sewing. After sewing sufficiently to enable him to judge of its merit, he stopped, and, after examining the work it had done, exclaimed, ‘ Can you make any more like this ?’ (addressing the agent, who stood watching the result with great in terest :) ‘ I shall want all you can make,’—a prophecy literally fulfilled. The new fabric assumed the name of ‘ machine-twistand from that time to the present the amount of silk consumed upon sewing-machines is marvelous. A new enterprise was born, which created an industry giving labor to many thousands.” Although, in this first experiment of machine-twist, the invention was complete, the manufacturers still found great trouble in its pro duction ; for the machine required a thread which, to be moved auto matically, must be absolutely perfect, like the machine itself. It was by gradual improvements in machinery, and manipulations generally too minute to warrant description, that they succeeded in the result they have now so completely attained,—that of placing upon spools a definite weight of silk thread, of continuous length, entirely free from slugs, knots, and uneven places, and perfectly adapted to the machine which is to apply it. We may, however, mention as Amer ican inventions, which have contributed to the advancement of this manufacture, new mechanical patented devices for spooling the thread and weighing it; and especially a machine in general use for stretch ing the thread after it has been twisted, which has the effect of length ening the thread about fifteen per cent., and of making it even throughout. As the manufacture advanced, the standard of excel lence, both on the part of the producer and consumer, grew higher. In the earlier stages of manufacture, the black silks were heavily weighted by chemical means ; greatly diminishing the tensile strength of the thread,—a system then invariably pursued by the makers of foreign sewing-silks. Certain American manufacturers then intro duced goods of strictly pure dye; and, to insure the consumer against fraud, also introduced measuring and strength-testing machines, by means of which the buyer might inform himself of the actual value he had in each pound of twist. In time, the makers placed upon the goods their own names and brands or trade-marks, like the well- known designations, “Nonotuck,” “ Corticelli,” “Lion,” “Eureka,” etc., which are absolute guarantees, to the consumer and dealer, of the quantity and quality of the goods sold. The direct tests to which the American sewing- and machine-silks are subjected, in this coun try, by the ready-made clothing manufacture, unequaled by any other in the world in the extent and systematical character of its operations, has contributed greatly to the perfection of this branch of the silk- 7