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98 INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. manufacture. That the United States may now challenge the world in the fabrication of sewing-silks was fully demonstrated at the Exhibition, as here before said. All the sewing-silks exhibited were subjected to the most severe tests by the expert Judges. A result of these careful tests was the conclusion of the Judges, that certain American sewing-silks exhibited surpassed, in all the qualities which make up the sum of excellence, any displayed by foreign nations. The statement of the aggregate production of sewing-silks and ma- chine-twists in this country fails to show the large scale upon which this manufacture is conducted, and the activity of enterprise in this department. A better conception may be formed from the facts, that in a single establishment not less than six hundred operatives are constantly employed, and its consumption of raw reeled silk in the present year is one hundred and three thousand pounds of raw silk, of a value of about twelve dollars per pound. As an illustration of the rapidity with which this manufacture has been expanded, it may be stated that a firm of manufacturers who commenced the sale of sewing-silks in 1856, with a capital of twenty-five dollars, in 1876 consumed no less than three thousand pounds of raw material in their own manufacture, gave employment to one thousand hands, and sold a value of about eight hundred thousand dollars. Before leaving this branch of the silk-manufacture, we must not omit to notice the machinery in actual operation at the Exhibition, illustrating the methods in use in this country for fabricating sewing- silk. A description furnished by an expert correspondent of the New York Times is better than any we can offer. The machinery in operation was exhibited by the Nonotuck Company, of Florence, Massachusetts, and the Danforth Manufacturing Company, Paterson, New Jersey. The writer from whom we quote says,— “To begin with, the skeins of raw silk, just as they come from China or Italy, are strung upon winders, for the purpose of being wound on to bobbins. This is a very simple process, and done on very simple machinery; the only mechanical aid of any consequence being a reciprocating cam, which gives a lateral motion, and dis tributes the strand of silk equally over the bobbin. These bobbins are then transferred to the ‘doubling’ machine, on which any number of threads, from three up to ten, are wound together. But this ma chine involves one or two very pretty movements. As in the case of the winder, the equal distribution of the combined thread on the bob bin is regulated by a reciprocating cam; but a very neat attachment also stops any one bobbin the moment one of the threads, making the