WORSTED YARN MANUFACTURING IN PENN

SYLVANIA.

In the last Report of the Bureau, the plan was adopted of devoting a part of each Report to a detailed account of one or two of the leading industries of Pennsylvania. Last year the Bureau selected for this purpose the Keystone Saw Works of Henry Disston & Son, and the Cambria Iron and Steel Werks, at Johnstown. In the present Report a description will be given of the worsted yarn industry as carried on by Erben, Search & Co.

The manufacture of worsted yarn advanced by slow stages and no marked improvement was introduced until 1785, when Arkwright and Hargraves invented, the one the drawing-roller and the other the spinning-roller. From that time to this the history of woolen machinery has been full of constant improvement and wonderful progress. The greatest stimulus to the industry was that given by the invention of the Noble comb about 1860.

The first power-combing worsted mills in Philadelphia were established by Samuel Yewdall in West Philadelphia. He manufactured nothing but worsted yarns out of long coarse wool using Lister combs. These combs are specially adapted to the combing of long lustrous wools, whose product was woven into fabrics intended to have a very hard finish and to be very lustrous, such as braids, alpacas and goods that were known as delaines. The commencement of these mills was about 1860, and about two years after the starting of this enterprise John and William Yewdall started the Fairmount worsted mills located at Twenty-fifth and Spring Garden streets. One of the improvements they introduced very shortly after the commencement of their enterprise was the Noble comb. This was a comparatively recent invention used in England, and adapted to the use of shorter and finer wools. The Lister comb was best adapted for wools from five to eight inches long, usually coarse in fibre, the short fine wools being almost wholly carded for woolen yarn-by the introduction of the Noble comb a large percentage of these short wools were made available for worsted purposes. From this time dates the commencement of the manufacture of fine fancy cassimeres for men's wear made from worsted yarns. An account of the operation of the Lister and Noble combs will be given when we come to describe the operation of combing. The shorter wools are the softer wools and are adapted to giv a fine face finish to cloths. These cloths have been steadily growing 1 D STATISTICS.

in favor since the introduction of the Noble comb, having almost entirely supplanted the fabrics formerly known as broadcloth, doeskin and the like. At first worsteds were light fabrics but now they are backed with woolen yarn to make them warm. Since the introduction of the Noble comb the worsted industry has been steadily increasing. The growth is as remarkable in the cloth industry as in any other branch, until at this time there are above six hundred combs running in the United States of which probably one-third are in Pennsylvania, and nearly all of that third in the vicinity of Philadelphia. The rest of the six hundred are almost entirely in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Single 36 or yarn running 20,160 yards to the pound about represented the limits of economical working possibilities under the old Lister comb process, when using the long coarse wools but under the newer Noble comb process, enabling much finer wool to be used, the count has been increased to No. 80 or even No. 100, representing from 44,800 to 56,001 yards of thread per pound. The product of the Lister comb was in a very much smaller degree suitable for the loom, while the product of the Noble comb is almost entirely taken for the loom. These improvements are due to the possibility of using finer cards and finer combs and employing finer and shorter wools.

History of the Firm.

John and William Yewdall ran the mills until 1870, when they were succeeded by Fiss, Banes & Erben, the firm being composed of George W. Fiss, Colonel Charles H. Banes and Henry Erben. A year and a-half afterwards Theodore C. Search was admitted to the firm, the name being changed to Fiss, Banes, Erben & Co. This relation continued until 1883. In 1883 the firm was succeeded by the firm of Erben, Search & Co., composed of Henry Erben, Theodore C. Search, Charles H. Harding and Walter Erben and so stands today. In Fiss, Banes and Erben's time the capacity of the mills was increased fifty per cent. The business continued to increase and the quarters became too limited for the operations carried on by the last firm and in 1884, the draft and plans were obtained for the new mills which were located finally at Tacony, in the city of Philadelphia. These mills were built expressly for the manufacture of worsted yarns. Before building them a careful investigation was made of leading works of like kind in Europe. The works are situated on the Delaware river, whence the water supply is drawn, and on the Pennsylvania railroad, two sidings of which connect the works with the main line. The works, besides the rooms used for worsted manufacturing, contain a machine shop which adjoins the combing room, where all repairs are made. The pumping room is furnished with an improved Worthington pump, which pumps the water in directly

every part of the building. Wells have been bored to supply perfectly clear water. The flow of these wells is at the rate of fifty gallons per minute, now being increased to one hundred gallons per minute. The works are lighted by both the arc and incandescent lights. The arc lights are used to light up a whole room, while the incandescent are to light up parts of machines. The arc lights are the Thomson-Houston and the incandescent are the Edison and the Sawyer Mann systems. There are two dynamos, one for each system of lighting. There are 30 arc lights of 1200 candle power, and 150 incandescent lights of 20 candle power.

With this general description of the character of the worsted industry and of the works at Tacony, let us proceed to examine the various processes in detail. There are in the manufacture of worsted thread seven main operations, as follows:

1. Sorting.

2. Scouring.

3. Drying.

4. [a] preparing or [b] carding.

5. [a] combing by the Lister or [b] by the Noble comb.

6. Drawing.

7. Spinning.

1. Wool Sorting Room.

Soundness of fiber is the one great desideratum to the worsted spinner; and without it he cannot make good work. It is, therefore, customary for all manufacturers to have trained help for the special purpose of examining and testing the staple of fleeces to prove their fitness for the work. The fiber of worsted is called upon to undergo very considerable strain in the process of being combed and drawn, preparatory to spinning, and unless the strength is sufficient to stand the usage much loss must ensue by waste during the process; and tender yarn as well as poor yarn will necessarily result. We then arrive at the point of manufacture of the fleece before us. This must be sorted, as to quality; by which we mean fiueness of fiber. This is the main work, incidentally it may include the separation of locks having burrs, which are undesirable in the further process-it necessarily includes the separation of the weak, scrawny parts of the fleece, such as the neck pieces, shanks, leg clippings, etc. The worsted manufacturer wants only the best fibers out of the fleece. The amount of rejection in a good, healthy fleece of fine wool will reach ten to twelve per cent., as wool is generally put upon the market by the American farmers. In coarse fleeces the amount is still less. This twelve per cent. may be divided as follows: seven to nine per cent. shorts, two per cent. strings, one to two per cent. burrs. The rest of the sorting work consists in separating the different qualities of the remaining part of the fleece. These qualities are made accord

ing to the work for which they are intended. The sorter's work is one which requires constant care, a quick eye and good judgment. To the uninitiated he appears to work without apparent thought, but this can only come from long experience, for there is no work requiring more care, especially in mills whose product is yarn, which it is desirable to have of a constant, uniform grade. The different kinds of wool are used for different kinds of goods. Kentucky and Canada wool are long staple, in many respects similar. The different kinds of sorted wool are put into different bins, each one being lettered for a particular kind of wool. The arrangement of these bins is peculiar and nothing like it is found elsewhere. There are trap doors in the floor in front of each bin and each one lettered to correspond with the bin. Each has a double outlet, and the wool thus falls into its proper place in the basement of the floor below. In the basement, trucks come into the bins and remove the wool. As the trucks leave the room, they pass over the scales, and the wool is weighed and a record taken each day. The capacity of each bin is from 15,000 to 30,000 pounds, and the total storage capacity is 250.000 pounds.

There is also a second store house of like dimensions. In this woolsorting room, there are windows at every few feet, so that each sorter may have all the light that is possible on his work.

2. The Wash House.

Perhaps more than in any other department, ultimate success depends upon the perfect result here obtained. The ideal result is the absolute cleansing of the fiber from all foreign matter; at the same time, care being taken not to rob the staple of the life and elasticity which it naturally possesses. The lorications of the fiber or the leaflike projections around its circumference conceal a very large amount of animal matter called "suint" or "yolk," probably the exudation of animal matter from the pores of the skin; which seems to be a natural provision for the proper lubrication of the fleece. Whether or not this is the fact, the substance is present, and its presence causes dust and other extraneous matter to adhere to the fiber. It is the business of the washer to remove these so as to produce the ideal result as nearly as possible. The agencies at hand are water, heat and soap. One of the most wide-spread difficulties is hard water in which it is impossible to properly cleanse wool. The sulphates and carbonates of lime held in solution are the staunch enemies of the wool washer. These may be neutralized by introducing a small quantity of soda crystals or soda ash, these are carbonates of soda, it is true, and cannot do the work as well as caustic soda, but the latter requires so much care, that there is considerable danger of injury to the wool. So that while there can be no difference of opinion as to the effect of pure caustic upon hard water, yet manufacturers have